Sonic & Mario
by LOAP
Summary: When Sonic and his arch foe Dr. Eggman gets transported to Mario's world, chaos is sure to happen. What is Eggman's new scheme? Will Sonic and Mario get along or will they become rivals?
1. Chapter 1: Chaos Control

_(Note: This story is a storyline I wish to make in a fan made game: Sonic & Mario. I am trying my best to figure a way to make it, but I needed the storyline first. To spread my ideas around of the perfect story of the best videogame mascots, I am writing them on this website not just for entertainment, but also to get an idea of how people will like this story for a videogame in the future. Please enjoy and comment anytime you want. Have fun!)_

_**SONIC & MARIO**_

**Chapter 1**

**Chaos Control**

The fine green grass suddenly blew away as a whipping blue streak dashed through the green meadow of Green Hill. The once sunny sky slowly turned gray with stormy clouds as the blue streak made its way through the meadow and up a large hill in the center of the plain. There the streak stopped and looked around the meadow as its identification was made known: Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest creature on the planet Mobius.

Sonic did not move from his spot on the hilltop. His eyes dashed across the scenery for the object he was looking for: the seventh chaos emerald.

Finding the chaos emerald wasn't something new; he had found all seven chaos emeralds dozens of time. This time, however, the search was more urgent than before because his old long adversary, Dr. Eggman, was also searching for the last chaos emerald to power up his latest invention: the _Egg Dentastrater_. Rumor had it that once the machine gets all seven chaos emeralds to power it up to full force, it could destroy an entire planet. And that was what an _eggceptly_ evil genius such as Eggman was planning to do.

Sonic let out a sigh. Eggman always tried to conquer Mobius to build his ultimate dream of the _"Eggman Empire." _If he couldn't conquer Mobius, he would go after a different target. He had tried to conquer the planet Earth many times to accomplish his dream he couldn't do on Mobius, not to mention trying to go conquer the whole galaxy. Yet, each time Eggman made his move, he was stopped by Sonic. No matter what new plan Eggman made, he could never accomplish it with Sonic in the way.

Except now.

Eggman had always went after the chaos emeralds to power up his specially designed robots to conquer Mobius, but Sonic was always to fast for him and grabbed the emeralds before Eggman could use them. So Eggman came up with the perfect solution to stop Sonic in his tracks. Some time after building the _Egg Dentastrater_, Eggman had made a new fighting robot, a robot worthy to match Sonic in every skill that he has: Metal Sonic.

He wasn't a new enemy; Sonic had easily defeated him on Time Planet. This time, however, he is ten times more deadly than he was before. Eggman had programmed Metal Sonic with the same basic strengths and character that Sonic has as well as his old attacks from before. Metal Sonic could easily keep up with Sonic and think out solutions quickly to many hard problems. What's worse, Metal Sonic has an anti-Sonic attitude that drives him to actually destroy Sonic and make Eggman ruler of Mobius. He has proven to be a deadly foe; he had already stolen the six chaos emeralds from Sonic and gave them to Eggman. That's why it was so important to find this last emerald quickly: either he gets it and saves Mobius or Metal gets it before him and gives it to Eggman for the Egg Dentastrater.

That was one thing Sonic would not let happen!

Sonic pulled out Tail's emerald tracker and studied it carefully. According to the tracker, the emerald was somewhere on a high hill in Green Hill but couldn't get the right calculations.

"Man, I should have studied more on navigation rather than run around and sleep all day," Sonic said to himself.

Sonic put the tracker away and took a good view from his viewpoint. There were thousands of hills in this area, but he'll find that emerald; he had to! No machine was going to beat him to it!

Sonic sped down the long hill and dashed into the grassy meadow towards the next hill. His speed could not fail him now, or it will be too late.

High above the highest hills of Green Hill flew two objects in the cloudy sky. One of the objects was a flying machine with a very fat man sitting in it, studying a small monitor in the machine very closely. Next to the flying machine was a smaller blue robot with sharp spikes and fiery red eyes on its head. Flying side by the side, the two objects are recognized immediately: Dr. Eggman and his new sidekick, Metal Sonic.

Metal Sonic said nothing as he waited for his master to finish watching the screen. He was patient with his master, and even though he felt like moving ahead at high speed, he waited obediently for Eggman to give him an order. Experience had told him that Eggman was the one with schemes, not himself. With his power combined with Eggman's high IQ, they make a very powerful team.

Eggman said nothing as he studied the screen carefully. If his calculations were right, the screen would pinpoint the exact location of the last emerald. With all seven chaos emeralds in his grasp, he could now power the Egg Dentastrater and build his ultimate dream of the _"Eggman Empire_._"_ Not even that phony Sonic could stop him.

The monitor beeped with excitement as a small 3d map model of Green Hill appeared on the screen. A small dot flashed on a large hill several miles north of their location.

Eggman smiled. The lost chaos emerald was found.

"Well, Metal," Eggman said turning his head towards Metal Sonic, "It appears that our long lost emerald is hiding on one of the large hills in the northern part of Green Hill."

Metal Sonic looked at the screen and nodded in agreement.

"It appears that you are correct"

"Of course I am!" Eggman replied triumphantly, "An _eggceptly_ evil genius such as myself can never make small mistakes on an important situation like this. Come, Metal, and let's grab that emerald before Sonic appears. The _"Eggman Empire"_ is nearly here!"

Eggman laughed triumphantly as he and Metal Sonic turned north towards Green Hill for the last chaos emerald.

Sonic dashed up another large hill and looked at the scenery. Though Green Hill used to be a sunny paradise, the dark stormy clouds soon closed over the sky, blocking the sun's heat and light. Sonic shuddered at the sudden feel of cold wind in the air. This wasn't normal weather here in Green Hill. Something terrible must going to soon happen.

Sonic looked again at Tail's tracker, but the screen turned fuzzy. Sonic restarted it but came to the same result. The approaching storm must be affecting the power core of the tracker.

Sonic put the tracker away.

"Well, I guess I'm on my own."

Sonic turned to leave when two metallic objects in the sky caught his eyes. Sonic stopped and gazed at the objects. They were too easy to recognize: Metal Sonic and Dr. Eggman.

"Looks like Eggman is looking for the emerald. If I don't find it quickly, Eggman most certainly will."

Sonic prepared to dash down the hill to find the chaos emerald, but his mind stopped him from doing so. Apparently, Eggman knows where the chaos emerald is located while he doesn't have a clue where to even look. Perhaps if he follows Eggman, he could find and snatch the emerald away before Eggman even knew he was there! It was a good plan; Eggman had used that strategy one too many times on Sonic himself. Maybe he could return the favor.

"Well then, I guess they won't mind me tagging along with them and snatching the emerald before they do!"

Sonic dashed down the side of the hill. Thunder started to rumble in the darkened sky as Sonic swiftly followed Eggman and Metal Sonic to the last chaos emerald.

"Blast this storm! It could mess up the map!" Eggman shouted as the screen started to turn fuzzy.

Metal turned to Eggman. "Perhaps if we fly closer to the ground, the screen will turn back to normal again," he said.

Eggman just sneered at him while trying to fix the monitor.

"Nonsense, we have a very good view point from up here. You're just getting nervous about the storm!"

No sooner had he said that when a bolt of lightning suddenly appeared and struck near Eggman's flying machine. Eggman dodged the lightning, but not quick enough. The screen to the monitor turned black.

"Arrrgh!" Eggman yelled, "The lightning had shut down the power drive of the monitor. The screen won't turn on!

Metal Sonic just smiled.

"Perhaps now you will listen more wisely to my suggestion I offered," he suggested.

Eggman thought on that for a second. The monitor couldn't run at this high of altitude, but it could possibly power back on closer to the ground. He wasn't going to get anywhere up this high in the storm.

"All right then Metal," Eggman replied, We'll land on the ground but keep an eye out for good for nothing hedgehog!"

"Yes, Doctor," answered Metal as Eggman slowly landed in the meadow behind a large hill south of the emerald's exact location.

Lightning danced across the sky as Sonic searched for Eggman. He had last seen Eggman just beyond the next hill north of his location. Sonic quickly dashed up the hill and found what he was looking for.

Eggman was standing beside his Eggmobile, fixing a small monitor in the light transport. But where was Meta…

A lower toned voice sounded suddenly behind him.

"After you, Sonic!"

Sonic quickly turned around and came into contact with Metal's metal fist. The force of the blow applied to Sonic's face sent him tumbling down the rugged hill toward a patch of dangerous spikes. Sonic spotted the danger ahead of him and quickly regained his balance and started running downhill. Sonic leapt off the base of the hill to avoid the sharp spikes and landed right behind Eggman.

Eggman quickly turned around and stared at Sonic with a sly smile.

"Ah, Sonic, you finally arrived. Too bad you are too late to stop me from retrieving the last chaos emerald," Eggman gloated triumphantly.

Sonic returned the smile.

"You may have found it, but I bet you can't get to it before I can!"

"Not if my sidekick has anything to say about it," Eggman sneered as Metal land beside Sonic.

Keeping an eye on Metal, Sonic bravely replied, "We'll just see about that!"

"Yes, Sonic. We will," Eggman then turned to Metal, "Destroy Sonic the Hedgehog!"

"It will be my pleasure," Metal replied and quickly landed another punch on Sonic's face.

Sonic fell back from the blow a bit but recovered quickly as Metal came at him again with an electrical blast. Sonic easily dodged the blast and ran off in the opposite direction with Metal Sonic close behind him.

Eggman quickly turned on the monitor. The screen, though still fuzzy, was readable and was beeping louder than before. Eggman smiled. The chaos emerald was just north of the next hill away from his location.

Eggman quickly got in the _Eggmobile_ and flew north toward the next big hill in his path. Crossing over the hill, Eggman saw a white glowing gem at the bottom of the hill: the last chaos emerald.

Eggman laughed triumphantly as he came towards the emerald. Now he had the power needed to power up the _Egg Dentastrater_.

Eggman pulled out a little remote and pressed down the button. The _Egg Dentastrater_ would soon find Eggman's location.

Eggman picked up the chaos emerald in his hand.

"Why wait the next day when you can do it right at this instance?" Eggman replied and laughed triumphantly over the success of his triumph.

Metal's fist just barely missed Sonic's face as Sonic quickly dodged the attack and backed off.

"He's getting stronger," Sonic thought to himself, "I need to find a weakness somewhere in this metal replica of me."

Sonic prepared for his own attack when he heard a loud engine in the stormy sky. Sonic looked up and saw a big dark machine flying in the sky. The machine had a large gun barrel mounted on top of it. An Eggman symbol was painted on the side of the machine. Sonic recognized the machine quickly.

"The _Egg Dentastrater_!" said Sonic, "Eggman must have found the last chaos emerald!"

Sonic turned his attention back to Metal and just barely jumped out of Metal's electric blast's way. Landing behind him, Metal turned quickly to block off Sonic's attack but instead, he saw Sonic running away from him. Confused with Sonic's retreat, Metal paused a moment, then dashed after Sonic.

The _Egg Dentastrater_ landed carefully on the grassy ground in the meadow near Eggman's _Eggmobile_. Eggman walked over to the weapon and opened up a small container on the side of the machine. There were seven containers along the side of the machine, six of them holding the six chaos emeralds. The seventh container's lid opened up slowly as Eggman placed the last chaos emerald inside. Eggman then laughed out loud.

"I now proclaim the beginning of the _Eggman Empire_!" gloated Eggman and went to close the lid of the container.

"Soon, I, Dr. Eggman, will rule the worl…huuuuh?"

The chaos emerald wasn't in the container!

Eggman dropped to the ground, searching for the chaos emerald. He didn't go far before his eyes met two red and white sneakers in his path. His eyes worked their way up till they came in contact with a set of green eyes staring in his own. Eggman immediately backed away from Sonic. Sonic, holding the missing emerald in his hand, gave a friendly smile back at Eggman.

"Well, Egghead! It looks like I won the emerald fair and square,"

Eggman trembled in Sonic's shadow but then saw a familiar figure gently drop down behind him. Eggman then gave a sly grin.

"Whoever said this was over? It's just getting started!"

Confused by Eggman's words, Sonic didn't notice the emerald snatched from his hand. Turning around, Sonic saw Metal with the chaos emerald. After taking it, Metal immediately threw it to Eggman, who then stuck it in the machine. Punching in many small buttons on the machine, Eggman finally pressed one big red button and backed away from the machine. The _Egg Dentastrater_ lit up and gradually lifted off the ground. The seven chaos emeralds lit up intensely and glittered as they were giving power to the _Egg Dentastrater_. The machine flew high in the air, the gun barrel filled with chaos power from the seven chaos emeralds. Chaos control was happening in the machine and powering it up every second. It was ready to fire on it's target: Emerald Town, Sonic's home.

"The whole world will see the true power of Dr. Eggman Robotnick!" Eggman gloated and laughed.

Sonic walked up to the _Egg Dentastrater_ and stopped, watching it as it prepared to fire.

"Eggman!" Sonic yelled out, "I stopped you once from destroying the planet, and I'm going to stop you again!"

Saying that, Sonic pulled out a small ring from his spikes and kept it in his hand. The ring glowed with energy, ready to be used. Sonic immediately spun into a tight ball, keeping hold of the power ring in his hand. The ring's glow surrounded Sonic as he jumped off the ground and went for the _Egg Dentastrater_. Being in a tight energized ball, Sonic broke through the powered up machine and landed on the ground. The _Egg Dentastrater_, wounded by the big blow, crashed to the ground behind Sonic, creating a small explosion in front of Eggman's face. The seven chaos emeralds bounced out of their containers and laid next to each other by the machine. Sonic regained his balance from the fall and turned to face Eggman, but instead, he saw a dreadful sight.

The gun barrel was still filled with the chaos energy the chaos emeralds had given it. The emeralds glowed even brighter, signifying chaos control. Then, suddenly, the gun blasted the pure energy into the chaos control caused by the emeralds, creating a huge black hole in the stormy sky. The grass and dirt flew everywhere as the black hole started its revolution in the sky.

The seven chaos emeralds, still in chaos control, were immediately sucked in the black hole. Eggman screamed as he tried to hang on to his _Eggmobile_, but the suction dragged both the _Eggmobile_ and the screaming Eggman into the gaping hole and swallowed him in darkness. Metal Sonic tried to outrun the suction of the hole, but the wind was too strong for him and he too ended up going in the sea of swirling darkness. Sonic dug his fingers into the ground as debris of dirt and grass were swept away like dirt being swept up by a vacuum. The suction grew so strong that the _Egg Dentastrater_ itself soon moved toward the hole and fell in the swirls of darkness. Without the supply of energy from the machine, however, the black hole soon started to shrink in size and the suction was getting weaker and weaker by the second.

Sonic suddenly felt the dirt he had dug his fingers in was quickly eroding away with the wind. Losing his grasp, Sonic screamed as he was sucked into the small entrance of the black hole. Floating sideways in the hole, Sonic stopped screaming and looked for a way out. Seeing a large rock ahead of him, Sonic prepared for a landing. After landing on the rock, Sonic used all of his strength to create a long jump to the entrance, dodging the debris instinctively. The opening was smaller than a rabbit hole, but he could fit in it if he was quick enough.

Paying attention to the narrow opening, Sonic didn't notice a large rock floating ahead of him at lightning speed. Sonic suddenly saw the rock but was too late. The rock smashed into Sonic's spiky head, turning Sonic unconscious. Losing his balance, Sonic fell back deeper into the swirling hole. The little light of the hole soon turned to darkness as the opening soon closed all the way. Sonic remained unconscious as he floated deeper in the hole, unaware of what laid ahead of him.


	2. Chapter 2: The Vision

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 2**

**The Vision**

"Mario! Mario!"

Mario's head popped out of the pipe he was in, looking for the source of the voice. He waited, but nothing happened.

"I guess I imagined it," Mario said and went back down the pipe.

Mario was very busy today with his technical career. He had received a letter from the mayor of Koopa Village last night, asking him to fix one of the large green pipes just outside of the small village. Apparently, there was a large crack in the pipeline that caused the pipe to leak water into the ground, making it muddy and hard to work on. What's worse, if the crack got any bigger, the whole pipe might explode and flood Koopa Village off the map. That was something Mario wasn't going to let happen, so the next day, Mario packed his plumbing tools and started to seal up the crack in the pipe.  
He had no time for imagining things.

But just as he went back to work, he heard the voice again, "Mario! Mario"

Dropping his tools, Mario worked his body up the large pipe again and looked around. Nothing could be seen a mile away.

"Must be some kid trying to tease me out of my work," Mario replied grumpy and went back down the pipe, picking up his tools and heading for work.

"Mario! Mario!"

There it was again! Mario threw his tools to the ground and murmured a couple words as he headed back up the pipe. He was going to give that kid a run for his money when he finds him!

Mario once again poked his head out of the pipe and quickly looked around at all angles. This time he was rewarded as he saw Luigi walking along the fields, shouting out his name.

"Mario! Mario!"

"Luigi!" Mario answered back.

Apparently, Luigi didn't hear him and walked closer to the pipe in the ground.

"Luigi, I'm right here!" Mario yelled, trying to get his attention.

Whether he was daydreaming or not paying attention, Luigi didn't hear Mario's voice and walked closer towards Mario and the pipe, still calling out Mario's name in his Italian accent. If Luigi kept up with what he was doing, Mario was going to a fat plumber stuck in a pipe.

Luigi was right in front of him, not watching where he was going and ready to jump onto Mario's head. Not wanting to be a flat plumber, Mario yelled with all his might, "Luigi!"

Luigi, surprised by the volume of the voice so close to his ears, jumped ten feet in the air and crashed right beside Mario's head. Searching for Mario's voice, Luigi stood up and started to walk away from Mario.

"Not again," Mario said as he once more yelled, "Luigi! I'm over here!"

Luigi must have jumped twenty feet in the air before landing in front of Mario. Luigi shook his head and yelled out, "Mario, where are you?"

"Look down!"

Luigi looked down in front of him and saw Mario's head sticking out of a large pipe.

"There you are! I was looking everywhere for you!"

Puzzled, Mario asked "Didn't you see the note I left by your bed this morning stating that I was working on a pipe outside of Koopa Village?"

"Note?" Luigi asked, "I didn't even know there was a note!"

Mario let out a sigh. His brother was the best friend one could have, but sometimes it seemed that he had no common sense at all. Why one time, Luigi tried putting a puzzle together without looking at the directions! How stupid could he be? Mario cleared his head out of the nasty remarks of his twin brother and asked, "Well, what do you want?"

"Princess Peach wants to speak to you privately in her castle," Luigi blurted out.

All the frustration inside of Mario left him when he heard what his brother said. Princess Peach! Mario was always fond of Peach and went on many dates with her lately. He was always there to accomplish his duties in the Mushroom Kingdom for her sake. He blushed a bit but regained his ability to speak and asked, "What does she want?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

Luigi shrugged his shoulders. "She just ordered me to fetch you for her and that was it."

"Is something wrong?" Mario asked.

"I don't know, but the princess seemed to be really nervous when she asked me to fetch you."

Mario got his body out of the pipe but stopped before doing anything else.

"Luigi?"

"Yes."

"I know I'm supposed to report to the princess, but I need to fix this pipe before it explodes. I was wondering if you…"

Luigi silenced him.

"Of course I will!" he answered happily, "I'm almost as good as a plumber as you are. I'll take care of it while you are away with the princess."

"Are you sure?"

"Mario, we are brothers as well as friends. Brothers do things for each other."

Mario smiled at his younger brother and said, "Okay, I'll split the wages with you when I get back. Just finish sealing in the crack and take my tools home after that. I better get going. Bye!"

"Adios!" Luigi answered back as Mario disappeared in the horizon.

The sun shined over Princess Peach's castle as Mario crossed the drawbridge separating him from the castle door. The moat surrounding the castle was filled with crystal clear water that emptied itself into a waterfall not far from the castle itself. The blue bricks that created the walls protected its inhabitants from both enemies and sever weather, but it gave the castle real beauty that other castles fail to do. All in all, it was the most beautiful castle ever created in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Mario smiled to himself as he remembered the magic this castle has hidden away from many of the enemies who tried to conquer it. The castle was a portal to many unknown locations in the Mushroom Kingdom, some of them peaceful while others were downright dangerous. Only Bowser, the ruler of the Koopa tribe, had discovered the castle secrets and even tried to use them for his advantage to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom for his own empire. Of course, Mario couldn't let that happened and used the portals in the castle paintings and walls to save Princess Peach and her kingdom from the evil grasps of Bowser. Now, it was peaceful, and Bowser hasn't shown himself for months. Mario intended the kingdom to stay that way.

Reaching the giant doors of the castle, Mario knocked and waited. It didn't take too long for the door to open and a short mushroom shaped figure to appear in the doorway. Mario knew him well; it was Toad: the princess's most trusted servant inside the castle walls.

Toad bowed respectably to the legendary hero.

"Greetings, Mario. The princess has been expecting you. Please, follow me."

Toad let Mario in the castle and walked down the hallway to the throne room. Mario followed close behind him.

Toad led Mario into a large room decorated with paintings and flowers. In the center of the room was a golden throne and on the throne sat Princess Peach, still as beautiful as ever.

Mario was glad to see her again, but he quickly realized that something was wrong. Peach was usually a cheerful person with a smile always on her face, but today, a frown had replaced the smile and her eyes seemed to be full of fear. Still, she sat in her throne like only a princess could and was calm enough to not forget her manners. Mario was proud of her courage during the trials she had endured when she became princess of the Mushroom Kingdom.

Mario took off his red cap and bowed before the princess.

"No need for that, Mario," Peach said, "You are a guest in my house."

Turning to Toad, Peach commanded him to accomplish his daily tasks. Toad bowed his head respectively to the princess and left Mario alone with Peach in the throne room.

Mario arose and put his cap back on his head.

"I am so glad that you have come, Mario," Peach said in a beautiful yet sad voice.

"I am obliged to your duties, my princess. What have you fetched me for?"

"I called you for your help," said Peach and stood out of her throne and walked towards the door.

"Follow me, Mario."

Asking no questions, Mario immediately followed the princess up a fleet of stairs to the belfry of the castle. At the top of the stairs was a door with a lock on it to keep citizens out of the belfry. Peach reached the door and stopped to face Mario.

"Before we enter the room, I want you to promise me that if anything should ever happen to me in the near future, you will be in charge of the kingdom till you find someone worthy to govern the land."

Mario was shocked to hear this from the princess herself, but answered her, "As you wish, Princess Peach."

A small smile appeared on Peach's face when she heard Mario's answer but was quickly replaced by a frown as Peach took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door in front of them. Unlocked, the door opened silently, and Peach and Mario walked in.

Mario followed Peach across the room. The room itself was rather dirty and old. It was the type of place to discover more magical secrets that had been hidden for eons. Mario, however, didn't have time to admire the room because the princess soon led him to another door at the far side of the room. There Peach stopped walking and turned and faced Mario once more. Mario stopped walking and stood beside the princess, waiting for her to tell him what was wrong.

Peach's voice broke the silence of the room.

"Mario, before I show you what is behind this door, I want to tell you what happened to me before I called on your service."

"I am listening, Peach."

"Three nights ago, I dreamed an awful dream. In the dream, I was lying face down on the ground right beside my castle. I didn't know what I was doing on the ground, so I quickly got up and saw the most terrifying sight I had ever seen."

She stopped and looked at Mario.

"Please, go on."

"Anyway, I saw my castle in ruins as if a shooting star had landed on it and blew up the whole castle. I then saw my people all lying there by the castle, dead as the cold winter night."

Peach stopped again and began to cry. Mario went and held her as she cried over and over again. It took her a couple of minutes before she regained her voice again and continued with her dream.

"I was running to the nearest dead person when I was stopped by a sudden blue streak that stopped and pushed me to the ground. I fell down but quickly got back up in time to see who had stopped me from helping my countrymen."

Peach stopped again. She looked cold and fearful as she was trying to force herself from crying again.

"Please continue with the dream, Peach."

"The figure was a bit taller than you, Mario, but it was blue and had spikes along its head. The best I can make out of it, I would say it was a big blue hedgehog!"

"The hedgehog glared down at me with the wickedest eyes I had even seen. Then, it disappeared in front of my very eyes! I woke up before the dream was finished and couldn't sleep the rest of the night."

Mario felt sorry for Peach and again held her as she began to cry once more.

"Don't worry, Peach," Mario said, "It was only a dream. Dreams don't come true."

Peach suddenly pulled away from Mario.

"Dreams don't come true, but visions do!"

Mario was shocked by her remark as Peach suddenly pulled out another key from her pocket and stuck it in the door.

"I had just discovered this room yesterday," Peach replied, "It should answer any questions that you have."

Peach turned the key sideways and unlocked the door. She opened it and walked in. Mario followed close behind.

The room was small with no windows in it. A torch was the only light that was in the dark room. Mario squatted his eyes under the narrow amount of light and looked at Peach. She didn't pay attention to Mario but was looking at the wall in front of her eyes. Mario turned to face the wall and got one of the biggest surprises in his life.

On the wall was a large dark painting that looked as old as the castle itself. Drawn on the painting was Peach's castle in ruins and dead bodies lying all over the place, but the most terrifying thing was a tall, dark blue shadow of a hedgehog with large spikes running along the back of its head. Mario gaped at the figure; never had he ever seen something so mysterious and deadly in his entire life. Mario quickly shook his head and faced Peach.

"Is this your dream?"

Peach nodded her head.

Mario looked again at the figure in the painting.

"Do you know when it is supposed to happen?"

Peach shook her head and said, "No, I woke before I got further into the vision, but I have a feeling that the vision is going to happen soon."

Mario looked at the painting one last time and then walked out the room.

"Where are you going?"

Mario stopped and faced Peach.

"To stop Bowser from accomplishing his plan to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom!"

"Bowser?"

"Yes, he is always trying to find some way to conquer the kingdom."

"Mario…"

"I won't let him destroy you or your castle…"

"MARIO!"

Mario stopped talking and looked surprisingly at Peach. She had never raised her voice at him before but now. Mario remained silent as Peach lowered her tone of voice.

"Mario, I'm sorry for yelling at you, but I fear that not even Bowser is clever or powerful enough to come up with a scheme like that."

Mario blinked at her.

"What are you trying to say?"

"We are not dealing with Bowser. We are dealing with a new enemy, an enemy that we have no knowledge of besides the painting and my vision."

"How are we to fight this new enemy?"

Peach became silent for a moment but came up with the solution.

"You, Mario, must make a new ally."

"What?" asked a stunned Mario.

"If you are going to fight a new enemy, then you must have an ally that knows your enemy well. Strength and agility will not always win the battle, but the knowledge needed to defeat your foe will."

Mario became silent once again and looked at Peach. He had always been loyal to her, and no new enemy was going to take away his duty.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to guard the kingdom from this new enemy," replied Peach, "But I also want you to find this new ally before the enemy comes. If you fail to do so, not even you can stop this monster."

Peach sighed and sat down in a chair in the room.

"Go, Mario and remember what I have said."

Mario bowed respectfully to the depressed princess and went down the stairs to the castle hallway.

Mario walked down the hallway to the front door of the castle. He had to prepare for yet another battle with an enemy. Perhaps his life was just full of war and no rest. Mario sighed to himself. If he kept this up, he was going to die at a young age.

Mario went to open the door when he heard a terrified voice call his name.

"Mario!"

Mario turned around and saw Toad running towards him as fast as he could run. Reaching Mario, Toad was out of breath and was too tired to speak.

"What is it?"

Toad managed to gasp enough air into his small body to speak.

"Bowser!" he said, "Bowser is here at the castle!"

Mario's temper became furious at the arrival of the bad news. So Bowser was after all making the plan to make the enemy already! Mario held Toad as he was trying to catch his breathe.

"Where is he?"

"On the roof!" Toad gasped.

Mario laid Toad down to the ground and ran down the hallway to the attic. If Bowser was going to start his new plan right now, Mario would be ready.

Mario made it to the attic and looked out the window. There on the roof was the huge Koopa lord himself: Bowser. He wasn't doing anything; just standing on the roof top, admiring the blue sky. Mario silently crawled out the attic window onto the roof top to meet his long time foe.

Bowser apparently didn't hear Mario walking behind him. Mario shrugged; he must be planning out his new scheme to take over the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario walked up to Bowser and called his name.

"Hello, Bowser."

Hearing Mario's Italian accent, Bowser quickly turned around and saw Mario standing right behind him.

"Hello to yourself, Mario," the great Koopa lord said with a loud booming voice.

"I need to talk to you!"

Bowser walked towards Mario.

"About what?"

"About your new battle plan to take over the Mushroom Kingdom," Mario said without hesitation.

Bowser stopped in front of Mario, now towering over him with his gigantic shelled body.

"Really, and what plan may that be, Mario?"

Mario stood his ground underneath Bowser's towering shadow.

"You should know because you're the one who came up with it."

Bowser looked down at Mario with a puzzled look on his face.

"Just to let you know, Mario, I haven't come up with any new ideas yet to conquer your lovely princess!"

"Then why are you here on the roof top of Princess Peach's castle?" Mario asked.

"Just enjoying the view," replied Bowser with a grin on his scaly face.

Mario shook his head. He could tell when Bowser told a lie.

"You're lying, Bowser! I want the truth!"

"Are you calling me a liar?" Bowser asked with a hint of anger in it.

"Yes, I am, and I will still do so if you won't tell me the truth."

Bowser glared down at Mario but didn't say anything. Mario glared right back at him. He was not going to have all this lying from Bowser delay his mission.

Bowser stood still for moment before he spoke again.

"Okay, Mario. You win. I'll tell you everything."

Mario wasn't prepared for Bowser's fist in his face and flew several feet away from Bowser. When he recovered from the blow, Mario saw Bowser get in his flying balloon and take off into the blue sky. Mario got up quickly and went to stop him, but Bowser was already floating high above his head.

"He's not going to escape me!" Mario said and took out his flying cap and put it on his head. The wings on the cap fluttered rapidly as Mario jumped high up in the air and flew after Bowser's balloon.

Bowser, who was expecting Mario to follow him, shot out a big flame of fire out of his mouth at Mario. Mario ducked and barely missed the hot torch that passed on top of him. Grabbing the fire flower in his hand, Mario shot a multitude of fireballs back at Bowser but just glanced of his scaly body.

"Ha!" laughed Bowser, "Do you think that a little fireball is going to hurt me? Ha!"

Still laughing over Mario's useless attack, Bowser reached into his balloon and threw some empty Koopa shells at Mario. Mario, however, proved too swift for the flying Koopa shells and dodged them in the wind. The flying Koopa shells gave Mario an idea on how to stop Bowser.

Bowser took a big, spiky Koopa shell out of the balloon and threw it at Mario. Instead of dodging it, Mario caught it in thin and threw it back at Bowser. Bowser ducked in his balloon and laughed at Mario.

"Nice try, Mario!"

"Thank you, Bowser."

Confused by Mario's reply, Bowser suddenly felt his balloon stop in mid-air. A big hole in the side of the balloon was letting the air out of his balloon, and he was quickly losing altitude. Bowser glared up at Mario.

"You'll pay for this, Mario!" was Bowser's last reply as he disappeared behind the thick clouds.

Mario stayed in the air and looked for Bowser. He had disappeared from Mario's eyes! Mario sighed. He just had him and now he had just lost him! Mario shook his head and looked down to see where he was.

Thousands of feet below him was the great Atlantis Sea that separated the mainland from the thousands of islands surrounding it. Bowser must have fell into the sea instead of dry land. Served him right.

Mario was quickly approaching a huge island in front of him. He recognized it immediately: Yoshi's Island. Mario was too tired to travel back to the mainland, so he flew forward towards Yoshi's Island.

Mario had made it to the island when a bright light suddenly blinded his eyes. Blinded, Mario immediately stopped in mid-air, putting his hands over his eyes to protect them from the bright light. What was going on?

The bright light disappeared as quickly as it had came. With the light gone, Mario uncovered his eyes and looked around. Nothing seemed different about the island but it was best to check it out anyway. Mario didn't know what that light was and intent to see what caused it.

Flapping the wings on his cap, Mario flew over Yoshi's Island; searching for the source of the mysterious bright light. Unknown to Mario, however, was a pair of eyes watching his every move.


	3. Chapter 3: New Ally and New Foe

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 3**

**New Ally and New Foe**

Sonic's eyelids slowly opened up, revealing a blue sky in his view. His head felt dizzy from being unconscious, and his whole body was sore from the fall. Sonic moved his body a little but then felt a sharp pain in his backside. Sonic moaned as he brought up his head to see what he was laying on. Sonic's green eyes grew big; he was on a thorn bush!

Despite his aching body, Sonic immediately jumped off the bush and landed on the hard ground underneath his feet. His whole back was filled thorns from the bush he just jumped out of. Sonic quickly pulled the thorns out of his back, wincing in pain each time he pulled a thorn out from his skin. After all the thorns were out of his back, Sonic took a long look at his environment. There were hundreds of fruit bushes marking the environment but not a tree in sight. Sonic shrugged. He must be in a meadow in the middle of a plain.

Sonic's mind was still dizzy at what happened the hour before he passed out. All that he could remember was a black swirling object in the sky, sucking everything in sight. Sonic shook his head. He remembered now.

Sonic looked again at the scenery. Apparently, the black hole must have sent him to another part of Mobius, one that he had never been to. Sonic shrugged and started walking down the path that was running between the fruit bushes. He had to find out where he was.

He didn't have to walk far till he saw a creature walking along the same path as he was. Sonic never saw this type of creature before; it looked like some oversized turtle with a green shell on its back. Sonic thought it looked strange, but then again, he was probably strange looking to the turtle itself.

"Oh well," Sonic thought, "Perhaps it could tell me where I'm at."

Sonic walked up to the green shelled turtle.

"Hey!" Sonic said in his cheerful voice, "Could you tell me where I'm at? I'm kind of lost here."

The turtle like creature took one look at Sonic and screamed.

"Who are you?!" it asked.

Sonic backed away from the frightened creature.

"Easy there, I didn't mean to scare you," Sonic said trying to calm the turtle down.

"What do you want from me?" it asked.

"Could you tell me where I'm at? I'm kind of lost."

The turtle baked slowly away from Sonic, getting off the path.

"You are on Yoshi's Island!" it said anxiously, "Now leave me alone!"

The turtle turned to leave, but Sonic was too fast for him and blocked his path.

"Where is Yoshi's Island located at?" asked Sonic, trying to find a clue of where he was at.

The turtle, blocked by Sonic's body, couldn't grab his breath and fainted right on Sonic's feet.

Sonic knelt down to the turtle and looked at it. It was still breathing but was unconscious. Sonic dragged the turtle to the edge of the path and dashed off in the distance. He didn't stop till he came to a hill in the center of the meadow. Sonic dashed up the hill and stood at the top, thinking over what just happened an hour before.

Sonic's memory rushed back and forth in his head, trying to solve his location problem. He had never seen such a strange land with a strange creature. The name the turtle itself had told Sonic was a strange one indeed, one that he never heard anywhere on Mobius. The black hole that he was sucked into was a big one, possible enough to send him anywhere in Mobius. But then again, as Sonic remembered, the chaos emeralds were starting chaos control when the black hole appeared and…

An epiphany suddenly struck Sonic. He wasn't in Mobius at all; he was in a different world: a different universe!

This wasn't the first time it happened to him. He and his friends were trying to stop Eggman when…

"Eggman!" Sonic yelled, recognizing how dangerous of a situation he was in now.

If Sonic himself was transported to another world, then Eggman must be here as well! Eggman wasn't picky at conquering land; just as long as he can make his _"Eggman Empire."_ And if he were to build it here…

Sonic dashed down the hill and ran along the path in the meadow. There was only one way he could Eggman and himself him: chaos control. The chaos emeralds had to be here on this world along with Eggman. If Eggman gets them before Sonic does, his chances of going home were over. He had to get those chaos emeralds no matter what!

"Where is he?" Mario said.

He has been flying over Yoshi's Island for a couple of minutes, searching for Bowser. He couldn't just disappear like that; not Bowser. He always left a clue of his whereabouts. But it was evident enough to Mario that he had lost sight of Bowser: his only connection to Peach's vision.

Mario was ready to return to the mainland when he saw a bright flash coming from Yoshi's Island. Mario stopped flying and looked for the flash but saw nothing.

Curios enough to investigate the cause of the flash, Mario flew towards Yoshi's Island, unaware of the surprise ahead of him.

"Blast this old rust-bucketed machine!" Eggman yelled as he gave a good kick to his _Eggmobile_, accomplishing nothing but hurting his own foot.

"Ow!" yelled Eggman as he hopped around on his good foot, holding the injured one in his hands.

"If there's one thing I hate more than that heinous hedgehog," said Eggman as he put his foot down, "it's a machine that doesn't work!"

"I heard that, Eggman!" came a voice from the _Eggmobile_.

Eggman recognized the voice immediately. Running to his _Eggmobile_, Eggman pressed a button on the control panel. A picture of Metal Sonic came on the screen.

"Metal Sonic!" exclaimed Eggman, "I thought you were destroyed!"

"Not yet, Doctor," replied Metal in the monitor screen.

Eggman got annoyed by Metal's sharp attitude. It reminded him too much of Sonic.

"Stop your joking and get over here. Do you know where I'm located?"

"Yes, Doctor," Metal replied, "I can see you here in the sky."

"Then come down here and help me fix my _Eggmobile_!" Eggman said as he went to turn the screen off.

"I can't, Doctor."

Eggman looked at Metal's face. Was he playing around with him again? Eggman had no time to listen to Metal's obnoxious attitude.

"What do you mean you can't?" Eggman asked angrily.

"Something is flying towards you, Doctor."

Eggman looked up at the sky but saw nothing. Eggman was getting tired of Metal's game.

"Listen hear, Metal!" Eggman yelled in the speaker, "I'm tired of your obnoxious games and jokes that you are always playing on me. Why just the other day you…"

"Doctor!" Metal replied, "Look behind you."

Though still frustrated at Metal's humor, Eggman had enough trust in Metal and looked behind him. There in the sky was a small object that appeared to be flying with no wings at all. The object was too high up to see what creature it was, but Eggman could tell that the object was ready to land.

Right near Eggman.

"Well, Doctor?" asked Metal.

"Keep out of sight!" commanded Eggman, "And don't do anything till I give you the word! Log Out!"

Eggman turned off the screen just as he heard a small plump behind him. Eggman turned around and saw the strangest thing he had ever small: a small human being in blue overalls with a red winged cap on his head. Eggman was shocked at the size of the human, not even as tall as Sonic. What impressed Eggman the most, however, was the red winged cap on the human's head. Apparently, the human being was using the small wings on the red cap to fly to great heights in the blue sky. Interesting.

Eggman was so fascinated with the being in front of him that all he could do was stare at him.

Mario stared right back at Eggman. Never had he ever seen such a weird human being than what was before his eyes. The human was much taller than himself, almost as tall as Bowser. The human's head was bald except for a scruffy brown mustache that covered his lips. Mario couldn't tell what his eyes looked like for there was goggles covering the identity of his eyes. The human's body was fat and kind of egg shaped. Everything about the human was weird yet fascinating at the same time.

Mario waited for the human to move, but when nothing happened, Mario walked carefully up to the human. Whether it was a friend or a foe, the human wasn't going to do anything unless Mario tried talking to it.

"Hello," Mario said to the staring figure, "who are you and what is your purpose here on Yoshi's Island?"

Mario's voice woke Eggman from his daze. Eggman shook his head to wake himself up and stood up tall to show off his full height and weight to the puny human being. It did ask him a question, and it was rude to not answer.

"My name is Dr. Ivo Robotnick, but I am known more by my official name, Dr. Eggman," replied Eggman with a smile on his face.

Mario was puzzled by Eggman's name.

"Dr. Eggman?" asked Mario, "That's a name I never heard of before. Where are you from?"

Eggman's smile just widened as Mario asked him these questions.

"Not from around here, I can tell you that," Eggman said and gave a short laugh.

Mario was unmoved by Eggman's answer or laugh.

"You see," Eggman explained, "I am a great scientist from the planet called Mobius, my dear uh…"

"Mario," Mario said, "I never heard of this planet called "Mobius." Where is it located?"

"Mario, eh?" Eggman said to himself. He was already creating his next scheme and who knows, this human could possibly help to succeed into making the _Eggman Empire_.

"As I have told you before, Mario, I am a scientist. The greatest scientist of all time as a matter of fact!" boasted Eggman and laughed over his previous accomplishments, "Well, it just so happened that I was working on one of my latest experiments to help people of all kinds and species when my enemy appeared and attacked my experiment."

Mario's eyes widened.

"Your enemy?" he asked.

Eggman smiled. He was slowly but surely pulling Mario into his _Eggman Empire_ scheme.

"Oh, yes!" Eggman said, "My enemy was angry that I was helping the people of my planet. He used to rule over them with an iron fist until I got into his way. Well anyway, he attacked my experiment and in my horror, a black hole suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I was sucked in it and dropped here about an hour ago. I have been here ever since."

Mario was deep in thought by the time Eggman was finished. It all made sense to Mario about the arrival of Eggman, but what happened to his "enemy?"

"Doctor, do you know what happened to your enemy?" Mario asked, a sense of nervousness in his voice.

"I am not really sure, but it is most possible that he is got transported with me to your world not too far from here."

Before Mario could ask another troubling question, he was shocked to see tears coming our of Eggman's goggles. Suddenly, Eggman fell down to Mario's feet and started crying.

"Please help me, Mario!" Eggman said between his sobs.

Mario was surprised by the "great scientist's" behavior and backed away from the crying man.

"Help you with what?" Mario asked.

Eggman continued crying and crawled towards Mario who backed up even further from the crying man.

"Please, Mario!" pleaded Eggman, "All that I want to do is get back to my world, but I am afraid that my enemy likes it here and will try anything to stop me from going back."

Mario stopped backing away and continued listening to Eggman.

"You see, Mario," Eggman explained, "My enemy is always against me and will try anything to stop me from accomplishing anything. If he found out that I am trying to go back, he might be upset and attack me for doing so."

Mario's temper started to go up. What type of creature would be so mean to attack someone for just trying to go home? Suddenly, Mario's question came back into his head.

"Doctor," Mario said, "I'll make sure that your enemy won't harm you while you are trying to find a way back to your world, but I am not sure what your enemy looks like. Would you give me a description of its size and power?"

Eggman got off the ground and walked to his _Eggmobile_. Once there, he turned around to Mario.

"I have a hologram image right here in my machine of my most dangerous enemy. Here, I'll show you," Eggman said as he pressed a button in his flying machine. A projector immediately popped up and shone a bright blue light into Mario's face.

Mario backed away as a hologram image emerged right in front of him. As the image was clearing up from the projector, Mario studied the image closely, hoping to answer his own question.

The projector showed a blue spiky creature a little taller than Mario himself. It had two long legs, a small body, and a large spiky head with two angry looking green eyes staring back at Mario's own blue eyes. From what Mario could figure out, the figure looked like a tall blue hedgeh…

Mario let out a small gasp. This hologram looked exactly like the painting he saw in Peach's castle! It was the same creature!

Eggman heard Mario's gasp and smiled. Everything was going as he had planned it.

"You recognize my enemy?" asked Eggman with a grin.

Mario stood still in fear, his big blue eyes staring at the awful creature.

Eggman pressed the same button again, and the hologram faded away. Mario, awoken from his stare, blinked his eyes a couple times to get his eyesight back.

"So the creature is real," Mario muttered under his breath.

Mario turned to face Eggman.

"You won't have to fear your adversary," Mario reassured Eggman, "I'll find him and take care of him for you and the kingdom."

Mario turned to leave but was stopped by Eggman.

"Be careful, Mario," warned Eggman, "That creature is very powerful. I doubt if a tiny being such as you could bring him down."

Mario turned to face Eggman.

"I have to try."

Mario turned back and walked off into the bushes, leaving Eggman alone with his _Eggmobile_. Eggman went back over to his machine and turned on the speaker.

"Metal Sonic, are you there?"

A voice answered him back.

"Yes, Doctor."

"Good," Eggman said, "I need you to do a big favor me."

Mario walked slowly through the meadow, his mind occupied by his latest meeting with Dr. Eggman. The creature was real, and he had no idea how to stop it. All the details he got from the creature came from Egg…

Mario stopped walking. A remembering thought just struck his mind.

"You must make a new ally."

Princess Peach herself had told him that in order to defeat this creature; he would need to make a new ally. Perhaps Eggman was that ally Peach was talking about.

Mario just shrugged his shoulders at the thought. Sure he just met Eggman (and he didn't trust him), but he had information on the creature as not to mention that he was the creatures enemy. Perhaps he could be a useful ally.

A sudden blue streak of light suddenly passed by Mario at alarming speed, knocking Mario down to the ground instantly. Mario laid on the ground for a moment, stunned by the speed of the blue streak, but then immediately got up and ran down to the path in the middle of the meadow. He had an uneasy feeling about that blue streak.

Mario made it to the path and saw the saddest scene he had ever seen. In the middle of the path laid a family of Koopas, all with multiple bruises on their bodies. Their shells lay battered right next to their battered bodies. None of the Koopas were moving.

Mario immediately ran over to the closest Koopa and knelt down to it. It was still breathing though with difficulty.

"Mr. Koopa," Mario said, "Can you hear me?"

The Koopa groaned as it opened its one bruised eye. He immediately saw Mario and recognized him as the hero of the land.

"Oh Mario!" the Koopa coughed.

"What happened here?" Mario asked.

The injured Koopa struggled to keep his eye open.

"My family and I were walking down the path when suddenly a blue spiky thing appeared on the path and immediately attacked us. I tried to get into my shell, but the creature was too fast for me."

The injured Koopa coughed once more as Mario tried to solve the scenario that just happened.

"What did the creature look like?"

The Koopa tried to speak but then suddenly gasped and fell out of Mario's hands. He hit the ground and stopped breathing. He was dead.

Mario stared in horror at what just happened. A whole family of peaceful Koopas just now died in Mario's hands, and it was his fault for not rescuing them on time.

Mario slowly stood up and looked around the path. The blue creature was nowhere in sight.

A touch of anger suddenly filled up in Mario's body: anger towards the murderer. Mario couldn't hold his temper and suddenly blasted a berry bush with a fireball. The bush quickly caught on fire as Mario took out his winged cap and put it on his head. Mario then immediately jumped up into the air and started to fly around the meadow.

The creature had murdered a family of Koopas. He wasn't going to let it hurt anyone again!

The flowers along the giant fruit bushes flew into the air as Sonic dashed by them. He didn't stop running when he came to the path but instead, he dashed across it and went into the other side of the meadow. Sonic's rushing around was urgent; he had to find the chaos emeralds before Eggman found them and used them for his purposes!

Sonic dashed around a berry bush and suddenly stopped in his tracks. Eggman was just in front of him with two robots at his side. Apparently, they must be looking for the emeralds.

Eggman didn't notice Sonic as he searched for the emerald on his monitor screen, but one of the robots heard Sonic and looked at him.

"Doctor Eggman! We have a visitor here!"

The robot's voice alerted Eggman as he turned his head around and saw Sonic standing behind him.

"So then Sonic, you have survived the trip here after all," Eggman said with a smirk on his face.

Sonic nodded his head.

"Yeh! Thanks to your invention, I just got blasted into a new whole world!" Sonic said sarcastically.

Eggman gave a chuckle at Sonic's reply.

"It's not my fault that you got yourself into my affairs," Eggman said with a laugh.

Sonic shrugged off the insult. In all the years he had been fighting Eggman, he was used to being insulted by the super genius.

"And now, Sonic," continued Eggman, "If you don't mind, but I just discovered the location to one of the chaos emeralds, and I plan to use its power for my use."

Sonic listened carefully to Eggman. So the chaos emeralds were here in this world after all. And Eggman had already found the location of one of them!

"Not if I get to it first, Egghead!" Sonic replied with a smile.

"You'll try, Sonic," Eggman said and then turned to his robots, "Distract Sonic while I get the chaos emerald!"

"Yes Doctor!" both robots replied and immediately charged Sonic.

Sonic just stood where he was while the two robots charged him at full speed. The robot's arms quickly became laser guns and fired laser bolts at Sonic. Unfortunately for them, Sonic finally jumped, and the laser bolts hit each other robots, exploding from the laser bolts. Sonic land softly on the ground and looked for Eggman but couldn't see him anywhere.

"Coward!" Sonic said as he dashed off in search of the missing Eggman.

Doctor Eggman wasn't too far off, holding the red chaos emerald in his hands. Eggman chuckled to himself and started to turn back when Sonic appeared before his eyes.

Eggman just laughed as he saw Sonic blocking his path.

"So, I see you took care of my robots, but no matter, let's see how well you will do against me!"

Sonic just smiled at Eggman.

"If you just give me the emerald now, we can avoid any use of nonsense violence," Sonic said.

"Whoever said that violence was nonsense? It sure helps me to accomplish my goals in life," Eggman said and with a press of a button a giant ball came out of the _Eggmobile_.

Seeing the giant ball, Sonic laughed.

"You better come up with some better tricks and stop using those old useless ones," Sonic laughed as he remembered that giant ball from a previous encounter.

Eggman just laughed with Sonic.

"Believe me, Sonic, I have learned from the past, and I plan to make things even better for me and worse for you," Eggman said and pressed a button on his control panel.

A blue immediately covered Eggman and the _Eggmobile_ while a blaze of electricity surrounded the giant ball, causing it to spark with blue lightning.

Sonic stopped laughing and stood in aw at the new sight. It was he who misjudged his adversary this time, and he was going to regret.

Sonic gave a nervous chuckle. "That's new."

Eggman laughed as the giant electric ball came flying at Sonic at high speed. Sonic quickly dodged it, but he just barely missed the laser bolt that was shot from the _Eggmobile_. Sonic regained his ground and took the defensive pose. This was going to take a while.

Mario searched back and forth in the sky for the unknown creature. Such a creature that the Koopa had mentioned must indeed be powerful, but Mario wasn't worried; he'll take his chances.

Suddenly a large flame of fire came directly in front of Mario's face. Seeing the danger Mario quickly turned aside just barely dodging another fire bolt that came at him again. Mario's head was getting dizzy from all the quick movements that he was using in the clouds. He felt like he could…

"Mario!"

Mario heard his name called and looked down at the ground below him. There standing on a big rock was a large Koopa-like creature that was jumping up and down, trying to get Mario's attention.

Mario quickly recognized who it was: Bowser JR.

"Mario! Get down here this instant and get ready for battle!" screamed Bowser JR.

Mario just shook his head. What did Bowser JR want with him?

Bowser JR saw Mario shook his head and took it as an insult.

"Oh, so you won't listen to me, eh! Well, it looks like I'll just have to blast you down from the sky!" Bowser JR screamed and blew a large bolt of fire at Mario.

Mario once again dodged the flame but wasn't quick enough. A small flame caught hold of Mario's winged cap and started to create smoke in Mario's face. Mario, unable to see due to the smoke, quickly landed down to the ground and putted out the smoke from his winged cap. When he was done, Mario faced Bowser JR who was waiting right in front of him.

Mario put his winged cap way and put on his normal cap. He was ready now for the worst.

"What do you want?" Mario asked hastily.

"I saw what you did to my father up there in the sky not too long ago, and I plan to take my father's vengeance on you," Bowser JR said angrily.

Mario sighed with annoyance.

"Not now, JR," said Mario, "I have to find someone and sto…"

"Yes! We're doing it right now!" Bowser JR said and blew a fireball at Mario.

Mario easily leaped over the fireball and landed back on the ground. Looks like he has no choice but to give Bowser JR what he deserves.

Bowser JR blew a big flame at Mario, but Mario ducked and threw a bunch of fireballs back at Bowser JR. Bowser JR immediately crept into his spiny shell to protect him from the fireballs and charged Mario. Mario kept on firing fireballs at Bowser JR, but his shell glanced off the fireballs that attacked him. Bowser JR kept his charge up, ready to run over Mario with his spiky shell.

Mario immediately put on his winged cap and knelt down to a pitcher's position, waiting for the charging shell to meet his grasp. When the shell came at him, Mario immediately grabbed the soft sides of the shell and took off in the air till he was a couple thousands feet in altitude. Once in a good position, Mario put his foot back and let go of Bowser JR's shell. Just when he released Bowser JR, Mario swung his foot around and kicked Bowser JR out in the distance. Mario watched from his view point as he saw Bowser JR quickly coming out of his shell and yelling at Mario as he disappeared into the distance. Mario took a deep breath in and let it out. He was rid of that annoying pest.

**"POW!"**

Mario suddenly heard a loud pound not too far from his location in the sky. Checking his surroundings, Mario saw a bright light north of his location.

**"POW!"**

Mario once again heard the pounding and saw the bright light getting brighter and bigger in size. Whatever that pounding was, it was coming from that blue light.

Mario immediately flew north in the direction of the blue light, hoping to find the source of all the pounding.

"**POW!"**

Sonic once again dodged the giant electric ball and landed in a berry bush not too far from the _Eggmobile_. Sonic shook the leaves off his spikes and leapt off the bush just as a laser beam caught it on fire. Sonic landed safely on the ground and faced his adversary.

"He's tougher than I thought," Sonic said as he leapt out of the way of the giant electric ball.

Eggman, safe inside his blue shield, laughed as Sonic dodged yet another of his attacks. Now this was entertainment! Sonic can try his best, but he won't be able to break through Eggman's shield. That's how Eggman loved playing these games: when he had the upper hand of the battle.

Sonic stopped to catch his breath as his mind worked quickly to find a weak spot in Eggman's shield. Perhaps if the ball pounded the ground with enough force, the shield would go down for a second, and Sonic could use that time to end this pointless battle. It was worth a shot!

Sonic ducked as the ball just barely missed his head. He just hoped his plan would work!

"Hey Egghead!" Sonic cried out to Eggman, "You ball may be pretty powerful, but you got to do quicker moves if you want to defeat me!"

After saying that, Sonic dashed around Eggman, not stopping till his plan would take action.

Eggman tried to follow Sonic with his eyes, but Sonic was going so fast that he fell out of his chair and accidentally hit one of the controllers. The ball acted up immediately and swung around the _Eggmobile_ faster and faster. Eggman struggled to get back in his chair and once there, he stopped the flying ball from moving his flying machine. The ball, stopping in midair, dropped dramatically to the ground with unbelievable force, sending chucks of dirt in every direction. Sonic backed off from the explosion and chuckled at Eggman.

Eggman, now recovering from his dizziness, saw Sonic laugh and grew furious.

"What are you laughing at, Hairball!"

Sonic kept chuckling.

"My plan worked like a charm, Doctor."

"What are you talking ab…" Eggman started to ask but then stopped as he noticed that he didn't see a blue shield covering the_ Eggmobile_. Eggman then panicked: the shield was no longer working!

Sonic took advantage of the moment and charged full speed at Eggman. Eggman tired to get the shield back on, but it was no use.

"POW!"

Screws and bolts were flying everywhere as Sonic landed on the ground and watched as the giant ball into a thousand little pieces. Eggman drastically pressed the buttons on the control panel, trying to regain control of the half broken _Eggmobile_. Once he had the _Eggmobile_ back in his control, Eggman flew high up in the sky and looked down at Sonic.

"You may have won this battle, but I still have the chaos emerald, and I plan to use for my benefits!" Eggman shouted as he held the red gem in his hand.

Sonic just smiled at Eggman.

"Wanna bet!" Sonic shouted back and jumped high up in the air where Eggman was and brought his foot behind his body.

Eggman immediately saw what Sonic was planning to do and said, "No, wait a min…"

Too late! Sonic brought his foot forward and kicked the _Eggmobile_ and Eggman into the horizon. Sonic then landed softly on a patch of soft grass and saw the chaos emerald land right next to him. Sonic smiled. One found, six more to go.

Sonic went to grab the emerald when he suddenly heard something land behind him. Sonic immediately turned around, ready to face Eggman again. Instead of Eggman, however, Sonic saw a different creature before his eyes.

Standing in front of him was a short human being dressed in blue overalls and a red cap. He was shorter than Sonic, but the human's face gave out enough confidence inside of him to allow him to stand on the shoulders of giants. The thing that Sonic found most unusual about the human, however, was his blue eyes. The cold stoned eyes stared right into Sonic's own eyes which made Sonic uncomfortable. Still, Sonic didn't turn away and stared right back at the small human being.

Mario kept starring at the blue hedgehog in front of him. So this was the creature that was responsible for the murder of the Koopa family. The same creature that, if Peach's vision comes true, will destroy all of the Mushroom Kingdom. A feeling of anger arose into Mario's body as he stared coldly at the surprised hedgehog, waiting for it to move.

Sonic, however, couldn't find enough courage to speak and kept on staring at Mario's eyes.

Seeing that the creature wasn't going to talk, it was time Mario took action.

"What are you doing here?" Mario commanded in an angry voice.

Shook by Mario's Italian voice, Sonic broke the stare that lasted between the two warriors and answered.

"I was just trying to find the chaos emerald when…"

"Did you meet any Koopas along the path in the meadow not to far from here?" Mario asked.

Koopas? Sonic was stunned by the sounding of the word.

"What's a Koopa?" Sonic asked.

"A turtle, that's what! Now did you meet any Koopas on the path?"

A slow memory started to reflect in Sonic's mind on the turtle-like creature that fainted at the sight of him.

"Answer now!" Mario demanded, getting impatient by the creature's silence.

Sonic shot a stare back at Mario. Who did this guy think he was anyway? Sonic had no idea what a Koopa was, but the human's impolite manners were starting to annoy him.

"Maybe I did, or maybe I didn't!" Sonic answered, a hint of anger in his own voice.

Sonic's words raised Mario's temper. Only a true villain would answer so nasty to a question! Mario was now defiantly sure that this was the creature that was in Peach's vision, and he wasn't going to allow it to accomplish its plans to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom.

"Listen here!" Mario shouted to Sonic, "I know your plans to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom, and I won't allow you to do it so guard yourself you fiend!"

Sonic was shocked by the heavy language the short human just said to him but didn't have time to ask questions because he then saw the human grab a winged cap out of his pocket and put it on his head. The human immediately jumped high up into the air and flew at Sonic. Sonic immediately ducked and barely missed the attack the flying human just launched at him. Sonic was amazed at the human's ability to fly and wondered how he was capable of doing such a hard task.

Mario regained his height in the air and stared down at Sonic. Mario's gloves turned into flames as Mario quickly tossed a bunch of fireballs right at the still hedgehog.

Sonic turned around just in time to see a bunch of fireballs coming directly at him. Sonic leapt out of the way and dashed off into the meadow. Mario quickly followed him and threw multitudes of fireballs at the spiky creature.

Sonic could feel the fireballs landing behind him as he kept running through the meadow to avoid getting fried.

"Who does he think he is? The Human Torch?" Sonic asked and speeded up to avoid the fireballs being sent be the natural fire bender.

Mario, surprised by the creature's quick speed, threw even more fireballs at Sonic, hoping to stop the hedgehog in his tracks.

Sonic was too busy outrunning the fireballs that he didn't notice a huge rock lying in his path. When Sonic took a quick glance at his surroundings, he saw the rock coming up quickly in his path. Sonic quickly leapt over the rock as one of Mario's fireballs broke the rock into a dozen pieces. Sonic quickly caught one of the pieces and kicked it backwards in hope that it would stop the human from sending anymore fireballs.

Mario kept his eyes on the hedgehog when he suddenly noticed a large rock coming at him. Mario tried to dodge it, but he wasn't quick enough, and the rock crashed into Mario's body. Mario whimpered in pain as the heavy rock carried Mario higher in the sky until he disappeared from sight.

Sonic immediately took the chance and dashed quickly through the meadow and into the setting sun.

As the sun was setting in the distance, a lone figure picked up the red chaos emerald that was lying on the ground. The figure looked at the emerald carefully, taking in all the details that made up this precious stone. I spark of power shined in Metal's eyes as the emerald glowed in the sunset.

"Metal, come in!"

Metal took out his communicator and turned on the screen. The screen fuzzed a little but then revealed the face of Dr. Eggman who was all dirty from the crash course Sonic had given him a while ago.

"Metal, do you have the emerald?"

"Yes Doctor, I have it here in my hands."

"Good then," Eggman said through the other end of the communicator. "Bring me the emerald and get back to your mission."

"Yes Doctor," Metal replied and turned off the communicator.

Everything was going the way his master had planned.


	4. Chapter 4: On The Edge of Mario's Temper

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 4**

**On the Edge of Mario's Temper**

Sonic stopped running and looked behind him. The human had disappeared from sight. Sonic relaxed; he was rid of that human for now.

Sonic bent down to get his breathe as he thought about his encounter with the strange human.

"Who was he?" Sonic asked himself, "And why did he start attacking me?"

Sonic suddenly remembered that the human could fly with a hat.

"How could that human fly with a hat and how could he send fireballs like that?" Sonic asked, adding these questions to the many unanswered ones he wanted answered.

After recovering his breathe, Sonic stood up straight and looked around at his surroundings. From what he could tell, he had run out of the meadow and was now in some type of plain.

Sonic just shook his head. Now he was in a stranger place then he was before.

"Guess I have that weird human to thank for sending me here in the middle of nowhere," Sonic said.

Sonic looked for a clue to his whereabouts and was delighted to find a sign standing in the ground just ahead of him. Sonic dashed up to the sign and read it carefully.

"Welcome to Donut Plains!" said the sign.

"Donut Plains? What type of name is that?" asked Sonic as he read on.

"This place is excellent for nature viewing but beware of dangerous plants that live on the tasty soil in this grassland."

"Hmm, tasty soil?" Sonic asked as he felt his stomach growl. He hadn't eaten anything for a while, and his stomach was getting upset at its abuse. Maybe…

"Perhaps it's called Donut Plains because the dirt tasted like donuts," Sonic guessed.

Sonic bent toward the ground and took a handful of dirt. The dirt was light brown and weighed very little in his hand. Perhaps in this world, dirt was edible to both plants and creatures.

Sonic shrugged his shoulders as he put the handful of dirt into his mouth.

And immediately spat it back out!

"Yuck!" said Sonic as he wiped his tongue clean from the not so tasty dirt that he had put into his mouth. That was the last time he was going to eat dirt for breakfast!

Sonic saw a little brook of water near him. Sonic went to the brook and scooped up some water in his hands.

"Guess I'll have to live with water for now," Sonic said as he brought the water to his mouth.

A sudden loud beeping caused Sonic to spit the water out of his mouth.

Sonic stood up and looked for the source of the beeping. As he stood up, however, a small object fell out of Sonic's back spikes.

Sonic turned around and saw what caused the loud beeping: Tail's emerald tracker.

The tracker didn't stop beeping but kept it up at an even pace. Sonic grabbed the tracker and turned on the screen. A digital map appeared with a small dot on the edge of the screen.

Tail's emerald tracker was working!

Sonic immediately forgot about the water and paid close attention to the screen. According to the tracker, the second chaos emerald was somewhere south of the plain.

Sonic's attitude lightened up at the clear results and gave a smile.

"Looks like I'm back in the game," Sonic said as he dashed across the plain, looking for the chaos emerald.

Unknown to Sonic, however, a predator had caught hold of Sonic's scent and started the hunt for the unsuspecting hedgehog.

Mario landed on the ground with a loud thud. The rock that Sonic had kicked at Mario beforehand was on Mario's stomach, pinning the small human to the ground. Mario was feeling sleepy from the whole incident and his eyes were ready to close shut.

Till something lifted Mario off the ground.

Mario immediately opened his eyes and saw a large vine wrapped around his stomach. The rock had fallen to the ground, and Mario could now see what was holding him up in the air: a gigantic piranha plant.

The piranha plant drew Mario closer to its jaws, waiting for the tasty snack to fall into its gaping mouth. Mario quickly threw a large fireball at the plant. The piranha plant felt the fireball against its leaves and howled in pain. Mario took the distraction for granted and broke the vine that was holding him in the air. Mario landed softly on the ground as the piranha plant quickly recovered and roared at Mario. It wasn't happy at the pain its prey had caused it.

Mario wasn't happy either.

"I am not in the mood today to fight a bunch of overgrown flowers" Mario snapped.

The piranha plant roared even louder at the insult and threw its vines at Mario. Mario quickly outmaneuvered the vines and threw a multitude of fireballs at the angry plant. The plant roared in pain as the fireballs attacked its body and let its vines go down easily. Mario backed away from the giant plant as it slowly calmed down, trying to recover from its wounds.

Mario took the free time he had and ran as fast as he could away from the piranha plant. The plant saw Mario run away and ignoring its wounds; it sent a couple of vines after Mario. The vines quickly wrapped around Mario's legs, causing him to fall to the ground.

Mario recovered quickly from the fall as the vines dragged Mario closer to the plant's mouth. A spark suddenly lit Mario's temper on fire. Mario had enough of this plant.

Mario did a quick somersault in the air, snapping the vines that were around his legs. The piranha plant roared in anger as its vines grew back to their normal size. Mario, however, didn't hear the anger in the plants roar; his anger was starting to explode inside of his head. Mario landed on the piranha plants head and did a butt stomp on its head. The plant roared in pain as Mario repeated the attack over and over again on its head. Slowly the piranha plant started to shrink in size, and its roar was getting weaker, but Mario kept on butt stomping. The plant grew smaller until it was as big as a normal flower. Mario jumped off the plant and threw a giant fireball at the plant's mouth. The small piranha plant shrieked in terror, but it was too late. Mario turned his head around as his fireball gave the final blow. The plant stopped shrieking and withered away into the ground. The plant would no longer harm any living creature.

Mario dusted the dirt off of his shoulder and looked at his surroundings.

"Donut Plains," Mario said, recognizing the landscape around him.

Mario took his red hat off his head and brushed off the dust. If there was one thing in the world he hated more than piranha plants, it was getting his clothes all dirty.

Mario placed his hat back on his head and thought about the creature he had met before. It was certainly fast: fast enough to outrun the fastest civilian in the Mushroom Kingdom. If Mario was to catch up with it, he would need to take the quickest shortcuts possible to stop it from reaching Peach's castle. Once he caught up with it, Mario would put a stop to its plans to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom.

If only he knew where it was.

Mario had lost track of the creature after he was knocked unconscious by the rock that the creature itself had kicked at him. From what Mario knew, the creature could be anyway.

"I guess I'll starting searching in the south," Mario said and walked towards the southern part of Donut Plains.

Mario's temper still hadn't calmed down as he left the spot he stood and looked for the fast hedgehog.

"I defiantly need to learn how to read this thing," Sonic said.

Sonic was staring down at the screen of Tail's emerald tracker, trying to figure out where the emerald was. He had already run south of his previous location, but the beeping beeped at the same rate.

"Too bad Tails isn't here," grumbled Sonic.

Suddenly, something large hit Sonic from behind. Sonic fell down to the ground and dropped the tracker several feet in front of him. Sonic recovered from the impact he had just had and went to grab the tracker, but suddenly a large vine grabbed Sonic's body and hurled him high into the air.

"Heh!" Sonic yelled as he flew high into the air, only to be caught again by the big vine.

"What's going on here?" Sonic yelled in confusion when suddenly he heard a roar from behind him. Sonic turned around in the vine and saw a large plant with large teeth roaring at him. The vine that was holding Sonic dragged him towards the gaping mouth of the plant.

Sonic quickly did a fast front kick, breaking the vine that was holding him. The plant roared in anger as Sonic landed on the ground behind it.

"Hey, pal!" Sonic said smartly, "I'm not plant food. If you're hungry, why not try ordering a pizza! It tastes way better than a dirty old hedgehog!"

The plant roared angrily at Sonic and launched a whole bunch of vines at him. Sonic easily sidestepped the vines, grabbed one of them, and ran around the other vines, tying them together with the one vine Sonic had grabbed. The plant roared as it struggled to get its vines free.

"Seeing that you are in a big entanglement, I'll just leave and look for the chaos emerald," Sonic said and went to get his tracker.

Only to discover it was missing.

Sonic grew excited as he looked everywhere for the tracker. Where was it?

During his desperate search for the tracker, Sonic failed to notice that the plant had finally untangled its vines. Free at last, the plant silently stalked the unsuspecting hedgehog.

"Where did I drop it?" asked Sonic.

Sonic suddenly saw a huge shadow loom over his body. Sonic slowly turned around and saw the plant free from its entanglement and now towering over him. Sonic also saw another thing too: one of the plant's vines was holding the emerald tracker.

The plant launched a bunch of its vines at Sonic, but Sonic easily dodged them and surfed up one of the plants big vines. The plant saw Sonic on its vine and opened its mouth, ready for the hedgehog to fell to get into striking distance. Sonic saw the plant's plan and leaped off the vine as the plant struck at its own vine. The plant roared in pain as Sonic landed on the vine that had his tracker and grabbed the tracker out of the plants grip.

"Sorry, pal, but it's not nice to steal from others," Sonic said and leaped off the plant.

The plant saw Sonic jump off and tried to grab him with one of its vines. Sonic saw the vine, kicked it away, and landed on the moist earth.

"It was nice knowing you, but I am not planning to stay for dinner," Sonic said and dashed away from the angry plant.

The plant tried to follow Sonic, but Sonic was too fast and soon last sight of him. Losing its prey, the plant gave an angry roar and shrank back into the earth to have a dinner of soil instead of live meat.

Sonic kept running and looked at the tracker. It was still the same.

"Guess I better head farther south," Sonic said and dashed off towards the south of Donut Plains.

Mario walked across the vast field, still looking for the creature. Mario was nearing the edge of Donut Plains and could see the blue ocean in the beautiful sunset. Any other time Mario would have enjoyed watching the sun setting across the ocean, but right now he had more important things to do.

Like finding that fast creature.

Mario soon came to a valley in the center of the plain and looked down into it. If the creature wasn't in the valley, then Mario had chosen the wrong place to look, and the creature would have a big lead ahead of him.

And that was one thing Mario wanted to avoid at all costs.

Mario sat down by the ledge and waited. He was still furious that he had let the creature escape, but there was nothing he could have done about. How was he to know that the creature could run that fast? Still, he could have ended this whole goose chase then and there.

Mario shifted uneasily on the ledge. His patience was getting smaller in size. He would have seen the creature by now if it was here, but so far, all that Mario could see was grass at the bottom of the valley. Mario stood up and was ready to leave but then stopped as he saw a cloud of dust coming quickly towards the valley. Mario waited as the cloud of dust finally settled down and revealed a small figure in the valley.

That figure was the creature he was waiting for!

Mario jumped off the ledge and into the valley. He finally caught up with the creature, and he wasn't going to let it go away without a fight.

"BEEEEEEPPPPP!" "BEEEEEEPPPPP!"

Sonic stopped and looked down at the tracker. It was beeping louder and faster than before. Sonic was finally close to the second chaos emerald!

"I think I finally know how to read this thing," Sonic said proudly as he looked around at his surroundings.

He was in some sort of valley that was walled in by the plain above it. Sonic looked out in front of him and saw a path that leaded to a large body of water. Sonic shuddered at the thought of being wet.

"That's the one place I'll never look for a chaos emerald," Sonic said in disgust.

Sonic looked around in the valley but saw nothing. The emerald then had to be on the plain above him!

"Chaos emerald! Here I come!" Sonic said and ran towards the exit of the valley.

And stopped immediately as a small figure land on the ground and blocked his way.

Sonic backed off from the creature and studied it carefully. It had a red hat and some blue trousers and…

"Ah! Not you again!"

It was the same human that attacked him before in the meadow.

Mario stood his ground and glared at Sonic.

"Finally, I have been searching for you everywhere!" Mario said in an angry tone of voice.

Sonic just gave a little nervous smile on his face.

"This time I am not going to let you escape so easily. I will stop you from accomplishing your goal."

Sonic just shrugged his shoulders.

"Sorry, pal, but I have no time to play around. I got work to do."

"Really, well try explaining this!" Mario said as he charged at Sonic.

Sonic just watched Mario coming at him at full speed. When Mario finally reached him, he tried to punch Sonic but only got air instead. Confused, Mario looked up and saw Sonic dashing across the two walls of the valley, finally reaching the plain. Mario immediately ran up to one of the walls and jumped quickly back and forth between the two walls till he made it to the edge. Mario gained his balance and looked for the hedgehog.

Who happened to be on the other side of the plain!

Mario grumbled angrily and made a long jump over to the other side of the plain.

"That was too easy," Sonic said and looked around for the emerald. He was rewarded when a saw the setting sun shining on a small purple stone near the edge of the plain. The second chaos emerald was found!

Some footsteps caught hold of Sonic's ears.

Sonic turned around and came into contact with Mario's fist. Sonic fell to the ground but quickly got up again as Mario tried to punch him again. Sonic dodged the second punch and gave Mario a small kick. Mario backed off a bit from the kick, and Sonic then ran over to the purple emerald.

"Hold it, Hedgehog!" Mario shouted angrily, "I won't be defeated by the evil likes of you!"

Mario gave out a loud battle cry and immediately threw a bunch of fireballs at Sonic. Sonic barely dodged the fireballs, and Mario quickly ran up to Sonic and started to punch him. Sonic fell back each time he was punched till he came to the edge of the plain. Sonic looked down and saw his worst fear: water.

Mario went to give Sonic another punch, but Sonic quickly tripped Mario, knocking him to the ground. Seeing his opponent on the ground, Sonic went and picked up the chaos emerald. This was his biggest mistake.

Mario's temper grew more and more during the fight with Sonic, but now it was on the urge to blow. Mario quickly got up shot a giant fireball at Sonic.

Unsuspecting the attack, Sonic fell back close to the edge, dropping the chaos emerald in his hand. Mario came over to Sonic and shot more fireballs at him. Sonic tried to dodge them, but he was running out of room to move. Soon he was on the edge of the cliff that divided him from the ocean below him. Mario, seeing Sonic on the edge, threw a gigantic fireball at Sonic. Sonic tried to duck, but he lost his balance and fell off the edge.

"Aaaaaahhhhhh!" Sonic screamed until he hit the water.

Mario watched Sonic hit the water and waited for him to come back up to the surface. Sonic, however, did not appear on the surface.

Mario waited impatiently for the creature to come up for air, but after seeing it didn't come up to the surface, Mario presumed it had drowned.

"Must be a poor swimmer," Mario thought and turned to walk away.

Until he saw a purple gem lying on the ground next to him.

Mario picked the gem up and looked at it. The gem suddenly glowed brightly into Mario's eyes, causing Mario to stare at it even more. Mario could sense a sense of power coming from the beautiful gem but what?

As Mario stared at the emerald, his anger suddenly melted away and happy thoughts took his anger's place. The emerald Mario had in his hand reminded him of Princess Peach: so bright and beautiful but also very powerful.

"Peach," Mario whispered to himself.

The memory of Peach brought back the memory of the painting of the creature as well. Mario woke up from his daydream and remembered that the creature had fallen into the ocean. It could still be alive.

Mario took one last look at the emerald and then placed it in his trouser pocket. Perhaps when this whole goose chase was over, he could give Peach this gem as a gift to honor her for the duty she is doing to protect her kingdom.

Mario put away the thought and went down the path toward the beach to find the remains of the creature.


	5. Chapter 5: The Hidden Ruins

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 5**

**The Hidden Ruins**

**"**_Splash_!"

Sonic landed quickly in the ocean. Despite his struggling, Sonic couldn't rise out of the water and sank slowly to the bottom of the ocean. Once on the ocean floor, Sonic tried to make a long jump out of the ocean, but it was no use; Sonic just sank back down onto the ocean's floor.

"Great, just what I needed," Sonic said to himself.

Sonic looked back and forth in the ocean. He was running out of air, and he needed to reach the surface quickly, or he would be dead.

Sonic again tried to jump to surface but just sank back down to the ocean floor.

"Why did it have to be water?" Sonic thought.

Desperately searching for some oxygen, Sonic saw a bunch of bubbles floating around the ocean floor. Sonic got up and ran as fast as he could toward the bubbles. If they were what he thought they were, then Sonic needed to get to them before it was too late.

After using up most of his energy fighting the ocean current, Sonic made it to the bubbles and took in a deep breath of pure oxygen.

"That's better," Sonic said as he relished the moment in the submerged air pocket.

Sonic looked up at the surface. There was no way he could jump that high underwater, and even if he made it, he was probably too far out in the ocean to make it back to the shore.

Unless he had a running start!

Sonic turned around and after taking a deep breath of pure oxygen, ran as fast as he could toward the shoreline. Fighting the water's pressure, Sonic ran on the ocean floor, hoping to find the shoreline before he ran out of oxygen.

Sonic then saw a wall in front of him. Sonic stopped running and looked up. The height of the wall was well beyond the surface of the ocean, and its length stretched as far as Sonic's eyes could see. Sonic then understood what the wall was: the cliff he fell off of during his previous fight with the human.

Suddenly, Sonic started gasping under the water. He was running out of oxygen!

Sonic immediately dashed off toward the air pocket. Upon arrival, Sonic immediately took in a deep breathe of oxygen and started coughing. After finishing his coughs, Sonic soon realized the situation he was in: he was trapped underwater and the only to get out was to swim to shore.

And Sonic was definitely not the best of swimmers!

"I hate water!" Sonic said to himself and sat down in the middle of the air pocket, deciding on his next move.

A bunch of clustered bubbles caught his attention.

Sonic saw a bunch of bubbles far out ahead of him and another one even beyond that bunch. The bubbles looked just like the ones he was in. If that was so, then maybe…

Sonic took in a deep breath of oxygen inside the bubbles and immediately dashed off towards the other bunch of bubbles. The pressure of the water going against him greatly slowed down his speed, but Sonic struggled on. After using up all his energy fighting the ocean's pressure, Sonic made it to the bunch of bubbles and took a deep breathe. He was awarded with pure oxygen coming from the bubbles.

After he recovered his breath, Sonic took another deep breath and dashed towards another bunch of bubbles in front of him. He made it to the bubbles and took another deep breathe before he dashed towards another bunch of bubbles. As Sonic made it to the next group of bubbles, a thought came into his mind. What if he was stuck under the ocean forever? He couldn't just survive on air bubbles at the bottom of the sea. He had to get out of here as soon as possible!

Sonic recovered his breath and raced towards the next bunch of bubbles as he slowly made his way through the vast ocean.

The stars shone in the night sky as Mario made his way down the sandy beach towards the ocean. He had waited for the creature to come out of the water for a while, but when the creature failed to show any sign of life, Mario decided that the creature was dead. If so, Mario would find its body and show it to Princess Peach to reassure her that her greatest threat was now destroyed.

Mario approached the ocean and looked around. Dead bodies would normally float on the surface of the water, but Mario didn't see the creature's body anywhere on the ocean's surface. Perhaps it sank to the bottom of the ocean…

"Excuse me, Mr. Mario" said a small voice.

Mario looked down at the water and saw a small fish swimming in the shallows. It called for him again.

"Mario."

Mario went over to the fish and knelt down to it.

"What is it?"

"Mr. Mario," said the little fish, "I just saw the weirdest thing ever in my entire life in the ocean: a big blue hedgehog running along the bottom of the ocean."

Mario grew tense at the news the fish brought him. The creature was still alive? But how?

"Was the hedgehog swimming towards the shoreline, or was it swimming out further to the mainland?" Mario asked, hoping to get an idea of where the creature was.

"Swimming?" asked the confused fish, "I said he was running on the ocean's bottom. I doubt that creature can swim! I saw it try to jump from the ocean's bottom to the surface several times, but it only sank back down to the seabed. I guess the only thing the creature could do was to run, though I have to admit, it must be a fast runner to fight off the water's pressure on the ocean's floor."

The news startled Mario. The creature was fast enough to run along the ocean's floor! What was this creature capable of anyway?

"How did this creature breathe underwater?"

"From what I saw," replied the fish, "The creature would run to the nearest air pocket and rest there as it gathered enough oxygen to make a run to the next nearest air pocket."

"Air pockets?" asked Mario.

"Oh yeah, there are lots of air pockets along the bottom of the ocean. I guess the creature was smart enough to use those air pockets to his advantage."

"Do you know where the creature was heading to?"

"It looked like it was approaching the ruins of Atlantis."

"Where are the ruins located at?"

"Between the mainland and the island."

Mario grew alarmed at the news the fish brought him. If the creature makes it to the mainland…

"If you don't mind, Mr. Mario," said the fish, "I need to return home to my family."

Mario woke up from his thoughts and replied, "Thank you for your message."

"I'll keep you updated," said the fish as it disappeared under the ocean's surface.

When the fish left, Mario took out his vanishing cap and put it on his head. The cap immediately turned Mario's body from a solid to a ghostly like figure. Mario then ran into the ocean and dived under the surface. The vanishing cap allowed Mario to breathe under the water, but Mario had to speed up his pace if he was to catch up with the creature.

As he swam along in the ocean, Mario reflected on what the fish had told him about the creature: that it couldn't swim in the water. If that was true, Mario would then be able to fight the creature using its weakness against him. The water would serve Mario as an aid in destroying the kingdom's most deadly enemy.

Mario reflected on those thoughts as he swam even faster through the ocean's current, hoping to find the creature and put a stop to its wicked plan to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom.

Sonic made it to the bunch of bubble and took in a deep breathe of oxygen. The newly breathed oxygen restored Sonic's breathing but failed to strengthened Sonic's muscles in his legs, and Sonic fell flat on his butt onto the ocean's floor. Sonic tried to get back up, but his legs were too weak to hold his weight, and Sonic found himself falling down on his butt again. Seeing that he wasn't going anywhere till his legs regained their strength back, Sonic crossed his arms together and waited impatiently in the air pocket.

"Man, I'm not getting anywhere in this big pool of water," Sonic muttered out loud in the air pocket, "If only I could get back on the surface and breathe in some real oxygen!"

Suddenly, a large dark shadow loomed over the sitting hedgehog. Sonic looked up and saw a large shark circling above him, looking for his next meal.

Unfortunately for Sonic, the shark had its eyes on him.

Sonic saw the shark swimming closer to him. The shark opened its wide mouth, revealing thousands of sharp teeth. After completing a full circle above Sonic's head, the shark suddenly charged at full speed at Sonic, its mouth opened wide to seize the small hedgehog.

Luckily for Sonic, his legs had regained their strength back. Sonic stood up and faced the approaching monster coming at him. When the shark came at Sonic and tried bite him, Sonic jumped above the shark and landed on its back. The shark, seeing Sonic on its back, swam around in circles in trying to get Sonic off. Sonic held on to its dorsal fin as the shark desperately tried to force him off its back. If Sonic lets go of the dorsal fin, the shark would easily shake him off and would eat him for a midnight snack.

The angry shark dashed back and forth in the water to try to weaken Sonic's grip on its dorsal fin, but Sonic's grip only strengthened as he hanged on for dear life. One wrong move and Sonic would never make it back to Mobius in one piece.

While hanging on to the dorsal fin, Sonic suddenly started gasping underwater. He was running out of air! If Sonic let go of the shark to get back to the air pocket, the shark would eat him, but if he held on to the shark any longer, he would drown. What was he to do?

The shark, in its determination to get the annoying hedgehog off its back, swam up to the surface and jumped out of the water. Sonic quickly recovered his breath but failed to react quickly to gravity's pull on both him and the shark in the air. Sonic lost his grip on the shark and landed in the water with the shark right after him.

Sonic started struggling with the water as it tried to bring him down to the bottom. During his struggles against the ocean's waves, Sonic's eyes caught sight of a floating piece of wood floating right next to him. Sonic immediately grabbed hold of the floating piece of wood and pulled himself up on it. While Sonic was trying tried to regain his balance on the piece of wood, the shark leaped out of the water and tried to bite Sonic. Sonic moved aside in the nick of time, but the shark's body then crashed into the ocean and caused a giant wave to form. Sonic saw the wave and rode on it with the piece of wood he was balancing on. The waves carried Sonic along the surface of the ocean. For the first time since Sonic was stuck in this world, Sonic was finally enjoying himself.

"Finally something I love to do!" said Sonic as he laughed along with the roaring of the wave he was on.

The shark, seeing its prey fleeing from it, swam at full speed towards Sonic and tried to swallow him whole. Sonic, however, saw the shark and surfed over to the other side of the wave.

"So you want race, huh?" asked Sonic.

The shark just gave an angry roar to answer Sonic's question.

"Well come on then! I'll race you to the mainland!" Sonic said and rode the wave even faster than before.

The shark quickly followed after him, but Sonic was too good of a surfer and stayed one wave ahead of him. During the whole incident, Sonic's smile never left his face.

Then suddenly, the shark stopped its pursuing and watched Sonic surf on in the starry night. Sonic saw the shark stopped and laughed at him.

"What's wrong? Are you already too tired to continue the race?" Sonic asked and laughed at the angry shark.

"_Thump_!"

Sonic's "surfboard" suddenly rammed into a large object, sending Sonic flying off the board and onto a large brick floor. Sonic hit his head against the brick floor and laid there throughout the long starry night.

Mario swam faster through the ocean's current. He had seen many air pockets along the bottom of the ocean and even saw footprints marked in the seabed's fine sand. The fish was right: the creature couldn't swim but was fast enough to run along the seabed.

Mario dived deeper to the ocean floor and looked around for any signs of the hedgehog. Instead, Mario just found more footprints leading to different air pockets along the ocean floor. Mario swam forward towards the mainland, following the footprints imprinted in the sand.

Suddenly, the footprints disappeared at one of the air pockets. Mario approached the air pocket but didn't see any sign of the creature. It was as if the creature had vanished in thin air!

Mario then saw a large shark approaching him. Mario got into a defensive position, but the shark, instead of attacking Mario, swam slowly pass him and landed on the ocean floor. It was still moving, but the shark was breathing really heavy. In a short time, it fell asleep.

Mario slowly swam away from the shark and continued on his journey through the open sea.

By the time Mario could see some light in the sky above him, he saw a large wall in front of him, blocking his path. Mario swam around it and found a small opening inside the stone wall. Mario cautiously swam inside the opening and soon found himself walking on a dry stone floor. There was no more water, so Mario took off his vanishing cap and took a deep breath of the new air around him. Mario knew where he was: the hidden ruins of Atlantis.

Mario walked down a long hallway and came upon a small door. Mario cautiously opened the door and peeked inside. To his amazement, Mario saw a big courtyard that housed many precious gems of all shapes and sizes. Attracted by the beauty of the gems, Mario forgot about the creature and studied the gems carefully. Each one of the gems was sparkling with some sort of energy, and Mario, out of curiosity, grabbed one of the gems and held it in his hands.

The gem immediately stopped sparkling and turned into a dull color. Mario watched in amusement when he suddenly heard a loud crash coming from behind him. Mario turned around and saw the ceiling starting to break away. Mario quickly dropped the gem and ran as fast as he could to the opened door he came out of. A piece of the ceiling suddenly fell down and blocked Mario from his only exit.

Mario quickly looked around for another exit and saw a small hole in the floor near the gems. Mario quickly leapt into the hole and went down a watery slide. Mario screamed as he slid down the slide at a fast speed. The slide led Mario to another small hole in the floor and into a large pool of water. Mario quickly swam up to the surface and swam to the side of the pool and climbed out. The whole experience Mario had just been in reminded him of the many booby traps the Atlatians had created to keep out intruders that had found their ancient city.

And Mario had fallen for one of their traps.

Mario recovered his breath and walked away from the pool. Next time, Mario would be more cautious than before when he sees another beautiful and yet, deadly sight in this hidden kingdom.

Mario approached another opened door and walked inside. To Mario's relief, it was only a hallway. Mario walked cautiously down the hallway as he tried to figure out a way to get out of this hidden building and back on course to the mainland to stop the creature before it was too late.

The bright morning sun shined on Sonic's face. Sonic woke up to the sun's light beam and sat up from his little nap. Sonic's eyes slowly came up as he tried to stand up on the hard stone floor he was on.

"Stone floor?"

Sonic immediately woke up and looked down at the floor he was standing on. It wasn't the sandy floor of the ocean, but the stone floor of a building!

Sonic looked around in sight of land, but all that he saw was water and the continued path of the stone floor. Sonic sighed; he wasn't back on dry land after all!

Sonic shook his head rapidly and started walking along the stone floor. Who knows? Maybe the floor will lead him to the land!

_"Beeeeeeepppp_!"

Sonic heard the beep and looked for the source of the noise. To his amazement, Sonic pulled out the perfectly dried emerald tracker and saw the screen beeping.

The tracker had found another emerald!

Sonic studied the screen for the location of the emerald. The beep was faint, but the dot was glowing red down at the bottom of the screen.

"It's under my feet!" Sonic exclaimed.

Sonic looked around and to his surprise, he saw a large stair case going down into the stone floor. Sonic walked slowly down the stairs and found himself in a large room with dozens of gems along the walls of the room. Sonic jumped off the staircase and studied each of the gems closely. None of them were a chaos emerald.

Sonic then saw a large door in front of him. The door was all locked up by heavy chains and a large lock. There was no way Sonic could open it.

"Guess I'll have to break the door down," Sonic laughed and quickly rolled up into a fast spinning ball and dashed into the large door. Sonic easily went through the door only to find himself go down a large water slide.

"Whoa!" Sonic yelled as he slid down the giant water slide.

The slide took Sonic down to a large hallway. Sonic fell off the slide and landed on the stone floor. Sonic carefully stood up and walked down the hallway with the emerald tracker in his hand.

Sonic went down a multiple fleet of stairs and into another hallway when the tracker started beeping like crazy. Sonic saw a small door in front of him and entered into it.

The room was filled with precious gems, but none of them caught Sonic's eyes for standing on a small pillar in front of him was the blue emerald. Sonic dashed up to it and grabbed it.

"That was easy," said Sonic.

Suddenly, the floor started to crumble under Sonic's feet. Sonic tried to jump out of the way, but instead, he landed into a large hole. Sonic yelled as he fell down the large hole and looked down at the bottom of the hole. The bottom was filled with water and in the water was a hungry shark.

"Not again!" shouted Sonic and quickly grabbed on to one of the edges of the hole, just barely missing the shark's teeth. Sonic climbed up the ledge and laid down on the rocky surface. After recovering his breath, Sonic held up the emerald he had in his hand.

'Finally," Sonic said in relief as he held his first chaos emerald that he managed to keep hold of.

Sonic got up off the floor and walked down a fleet of stairs along his path. Now that he had the emerald, all that Sonic had to do was to get out of this submerged palace and make it to shore.

Mario continued down the hallway till he came to a door in the ground. Mario cautiously opened it and jumped down onto another stone floor. Mario sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere inside of this labyrinth maze!

Mario stopped to rest for a moment but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming his way. Having nowhere to hide, Mario held his ground and faced the being that was coming towards him.

That being happened to be Sonic.

Sonic had been walking along in the hallway when he saw an object standing in front of his path. Sonic stopped and studied the object carefully and sighed in disappointment.

"Not you again! How did you get all the way down to the bottom of the ocean?"

"The same question I wanted to ask you," sneered Mario who had now crossed his arms.

Sonic just smiled.

"Well pal, if you are in the mood for another fight, you can just forget it because I'm too busy to fight."

"Really? What type of business would that be?" asked Mario seriously.

"Why the business of getting out of this place, of course," replied Sonic.

Mario gave a little grin.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I can't just let you leave."

Sonic jeered at Mario's comment.

"Just watch me," he said and went to walk past Mario.

Only to get smacked by Mario's fist.

Sonic fell back from the blow but quickly recovered himself and went on the defense.

"What is it that you have against me anyway?"

Mario, whose temper started to rise again, saw a small button on the ground next to him.

"The safety of the whole kingdom!" yelled Mario, and he jumped on top of the button.

"Huh?" Sonic asked at first but then felt the floor crumble beneath his feet and fell right through the floor into a large pool of water. Sonic sank down to the bottom of the pool and tried to jump out but only sank back down to the bottom.

Mario watched in interest.

"So the fish was right after all," replied Mario as he saw Sonic trying to jump out of the pool.

Mario jumped down the hole in the floor and landed in the pool. Unlike Sonic, however, Mario swam up to the surface and watched the frantic hedgehog on the pool's floor.

Sonic saw Mario jump into the pool and sighed.

"Things had to get worse," Sonic said to himself and watched Mario closely to make the first move.

Mario went under the water and swam at Sonic. Sonic ducked from Mario's charge and prepared himself for another attack. Mario again charged at Sonic. Sonic tried to duck again, but Mario was too fast for him. Mario grabbed Sonic and started to punch him. Sonic immediately reacted back by blocking Mario's blows and giving Mario a powerful kick away from him. Mario backed away from Sonic's kick, but recovered quickly. Instead of attacking again, however, Mario swam above Sonic and just watched him. He knew the hedgehog would run out of air and when he does, Mario will attack again.

As Sonic waited for another attack, he suddenly started gagging underwater. He was running out of air! Sonic desperately looked for an air pocket, but alas, there was none in sight. The only source of air was at the surface where Mario waited for him. Quickly losing his strength, Sonic fell down in pain on the pool's floor. It wouldn't be long before he ran out of air and died.

Mario saw Sonic fell down and after taking a quick breath from the surface, he charged at Sonic. The creature had nowhere to go; Mario could now stop him from destroying the Mushroom Kingdom.

In his pain, Sonic suddenly saw Mario charge at him again. In a desperate attempt to save himself, Sonic took out the blue emerald he had hidden away from Mario's view.

Mario slowed down his charge when he saw Sonic pull out the brightly colored gem. Now what was he doing?

The emerald started glowing brighter and brighter in Sonic's hand. A source of energy suddenly went inside Sonic's body, now powering him up with the oxygen he lacked. With the chaos emerald glowing in his hands, Sonic suddenly jumped on top of Mario and then jumped out of the pool.

Mario watched in shock at what just happened. The hedgehog had used the blue stone to restore his energy! What else could this creature do?

Mario suddenly started gagging underwater. Mario swam to the surface and saw the hedgehog standing near the pool's edge. Mario went to grab him, but before he did, the hedgehog held the emerald high up in the air and said, "Chaos Control!"

Immediately after saying that, the emerald glowed even brighter and suddenly, the hedgehog and the emerald disappeared!

Mario stared in amusement over the incident that just happened, but after remembering that he was still in the water, he climbed out of the pool and walked over to an open doorway that led to a bunch of stairs. Mario quickly ran up the stairs and found himself on the roof of the Atlantis ruins. Mario could now see the mainland as well as a bright light that shone on the beach. It was the same light that made the hedgehog disappeared!

Mario quickly put on his winged cap and flew over to shore. There were a lot of questions that he needed answer, including what else that hedgehog could do.


	6. Chapter 6: The Pyramid Prophesy

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 6**

**The Pyramid Prophesy**

Sonic appeared instantly at where the bright light had occurred, still holding the glowing blue emerald above his head. As soon as the emerald stopped glowing, and the bright light disappeared, Sonic put the emerald away and turned to walk along his path. Instead of feeling a path, however, Sonic's feet just felt pure air. Confused, Sonic looked down at his feet; only to discover he was high up in the sky.

Sonic's eyes grew big.

"Uh oh."

No sooner had he said that when he started falling out of the sky.

Sonic tried to turn around in the sky to land on his feet, but he was falling too quickly to change his body position. Sonic closed his eyes quickly, hoping that it wouldn't hurt too much when he lands on the hard ground below him.

"_Puff_!"

Sonic landed head first in a big sand dune. His head, along with his arms and his body, were fully buried in the sand. His legs and sneakers were the only parts of his body that stuck out of the sand dune; the rest was hidden away by the sand.

He was, indeed, in a ridiculous body position.

Sonic's feet landed on the ground and tried to pull Sonic's head and body out of the sand dune. After a little squirming around, Sonic managed to pull his arms and body out of the sand, but Sonic's feet failed to free Sonic's big spiky head from the sand's grip. Fortunately for him, Sonic's arms were free to use and with their assistance, Sonic managed to yank his head out of the sand dune. Unfortunately, the force of the pull caused Sonic to tumble down the sand dune and land on a bed of sand.

"If this is how all the trips are, I never want to use chaos control with a single emerald again!" Sonic said as he helped himself off the sandy ground.

After brushing all the sand off his body, Sonic turned around to look at the scenery. He could now see the ruins sticking out from the ocean about a couple miles off shore, but everything else he saw was not as lovely as the ruins. All that Sonic could see for miles was sand: just fine yellow hot sand. There was not a spot of green grass in sight; just sand. There was no wind to bring moisture in the air; just intense heat coming from the large desert sun.

"Of course, of all the places to send me, chaos control sent me here to the most boring place in any world," Sonic grumbled and started walking into the vast desert.

He didn't have to go far till he saw a sign sticking out in the middle of the desert.

"Hmm, I wonder what it says," Sonic thought and approached the sign.

When Sonic walked up to the sign, he could see clearly what it said. Or what it had on it. Instead of words, all that was on the sign was a skull and a pair of crossbones.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sonic asked.

Suddenly Sonic felt his feet sinking in the sand he was standing on. Sonic soon realized his mistake.

"Quicksand!" Sonic yelled.

The quicksand was now up to Sonic's body. If Sonic didn't do anything quickly, he was going to be buried alive in a jiffy.

Luckily for him, he was faster than any quicksand. Sonic immediately jumped high out of the quicksand and landed on solid ground.

"Woo! That was close," Sonic chuckled.

That is until his feet started to sink again.

"Not again!" Sonic said and quickly jumped out of the quicksand, only to land into another patch of the swirling sand.

"Great," Sonic said as he just let himself get swallowed up by the quicksand. Soon, Sonic's head disappeared under the sand, and all became quiet.

Suddenly, Sonic immediately popped out of the quicksand and dashed across the other pools of quicksand before he finally made it to solid ground.

"Yuck! And I thought water was terrible," Sonic said as he coughed out the sand he had swallowed in his mouth.

Once his body was clean from every particle of sand, Sonic stood where he was at and looked around him. He could no longer see the ocean, and the sun seemed to shine even brighter out here than at the beach. There was still sand everywhere, but after his big experience Sonic wasn't sure what was real sand and what was not. Sonic soon realized that he was trapped by a hidden hazard that could suddenly engulf him in each step that he made.

"_Caw_!"

Sonic looked up in the hot sun and saw a bunch of vultures gliding in the sky, waiting for someone to die in this terrible wasteland.

And they had their eyes on Sonic.

"Sorry, guys!" Sonic said, "But I'm not interested in becoming your dinner!" Sonic yelled cheerfully up at the vultures.

The vultures, annoyed by Sonic's comment, dived straight down at Sonic. Sonic quickly ducked, and the vultures just missed him. The vultures, angry at Sonic's actions, dived again at Sonic. Sonic ducked again; this time, however, one of the vultures pecked him hard on the head.

"Ouch!" Sonic said, "Okay! I get it! I'm outa here!"

And with saying that, Sonic dashed away from the vultures and back into the dangerous desert, running fast enough to avoid sinking into any quicksand that blocked his way. Sonic didn't know where he was going, but one thing was sure: he had to get out of this forbidden wasteland.

Mario slowly landed on the sandy ground. This was where he saw the light, but there was no sign of the hedgehog anywhere. Perhaps he was just imagining things back in the ruins.

Then Mario saw Sonic's footprints in the sand.

Mario bent down to the ground and studied the footprints. There were a whole bunch of them heading out to the desert. Mario smiled at his discovery.

"Well," Mario said, "It looks like he thought he could escape me by going into Shifting Sand Land. He had just made his biggest mistake yet!"

Mario carefully followed Sonic's footprints into the desert. The footprints led Mario to a sign then they disappeared in the sand in front of the sign.

"I wonder," Mario said and kicked a little rock into the sand. The rock quickly disappeared into the shifting sand. Mario smiled. It was quicksand, and it looked like the creature wasn't cautious enough to avoid sinking in it.

"I guess the all powerful creature wasn't very smart after all," Mario remarked and turned to walk away. His mission was over: the creature had committed suicide by going into the most dangerous place in the Mushroom Kingdom. All that Mario had to do now was to tell the princess that her worries were now over.

"Got ya!"

A huge bird knocked Mario down to the ground and took his hat off his head. Mario looked up to see the bird flying in the desert sky with his hat in its talons. Mario recognized the bird easily: Klepto, the hat stealing bird that would never leave Mario alone. Mario had encountered him before in this desert land, and he remembered all the problems that bird had caused him on his last adventure.

"Klepto!" Mario yelled at the bird, "Give me back my hat!"

The large vulture ignored Mario's command and was dancing in the sky saying, "It's mine! I finally have Mario's hat!"

Mario shook his head. Klepto was just as crazy as he was the last time Mario saw him, always obsessed with taking Mario's hat. He was harmless for the most part, but was just downright plain annoying. Why one time when Mario was flying over the desert, Klepto stole Mario's hat in thin air! It was a pretty messy situation after that, for Mario at least.

"I'm warning you, Klepto! Give me back my hat right now!" Mario yelled, trying to hold his temper.

Klepto just shook his big bald head.

"It's mine! It's all mine now!" laughed Klepto as he danced around in the sky.

"Okay then! Don't say I did not warn you!" Mario yelled and quickly formed a fireball in his hand.

Klepto, being distracted by his all time success in stealing Mario's hat, did not notice the fireball shot by Mario coming at him.

"Caaaaaawwwwwoowwww!" squawked Klepto when the fireball hit him.

Mario just stood by and watched as Klepto crashed landed on a sand dune in the desert. Knowing that this was his opportunity to get his hat back, Mario carefully did a long jump over the pools of quicksand and ran to the sand dune. Upon arrival, Mario saw Klepto lying on the ground, unconscious from the crash landing. But where was his hat?

Mario looked down the side of the dune and saw his hat dangerously floating on a pool of dangerous quicksand. Normally, Mario would just forget his hat and get a new one back home but not this time. This was a life and death situation to his best hat in the entire kingdom. He wasn't going to let his best hat disappear forever in this forbidden wasteland!

Without thinking on what he was doing, Mario slid down the sand dune towards the quicksand. Instead of landing in to his own death, Mario quickly did a somersault over the shifting sand and grabbed his hat along the way. Mario had good timing and landed safely on solid ground.

Mario carefully brushed the sand off of his hat and put it back on his head.

"No one takes my best hat unless they want to face the consequences," Mario said to himself and went to walk away.

Till some footprints caught his eyes.

Mario looked down at the ground. There were dozens of pairs of footprints stretching across the desert, disappearing only when the owner ran over quicksand and reappeared on the other side.

Mario gave out a loud grunt. His mission wasn't over after all! The creature had escaped one of nature's most dangerous death traps and was making a fool out of it by actually running over it without sinking into it!

Mario looked up at the sky and thought on his next strategy. He was in Shifting Sand Land: the most dangerous place in the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario knew it was foolish to try to run across the desert. Even if he could catch up with the hedgehog that way, he would most likely be caught in a pool of quicksand and would die a terrible death of suffocation. No, unless he had that hedgehog's speed, he would not survive one hour crossing the desert on foot.

That left only one other option: the sky. Mario's best bet at catching up with the hedgehog would be to fly high into the sky and find him before he gets out of the desert. The risk was, however, if the wind started to pick up, Mario would be blown to the ground and most likely fall into a pit of quicksand. Still, it was a much safer and quicker way to get across the desert and to catch up with the hedgehog.

Mario looked up at the sky. The wind hadn't picked up yet, so it was good for flying. Mario took his flying cap out of his pocket and jumped up into the air, the wings on the cap flapping quickly to bring Mario up in the sky. Once Mario had a good stance, he flew at a good even place across the desert, following the hedgehog's footprints across the desert sand. Even though he was behind the hedgehog, Mario did not speed up his flight speed because in a place like this, one little error could cost you your life, and if Mario died in this forbidden wasteland, how would he stop the creature from destroying Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom?

Still, Mario hoped the hedgehog had stopped at an obstacle in the desert, so he could make up his time and catch up with the hedgehog.

As a matter of fact, Sonic did indeed run into an obstacle. Though it wasn't a deadly pit of quicksand or a swarm of noisy pecking vultures, it was still, nonetheless, a dangerous obstacle. In front of Sonic was a small desert ruin and inside the ruin was a battalion of Bomb-ombs with large dark cannons.

And the cannons happened to be pointing at Sonic.

"Guess there is things that live in this desert after all," Sonic said to himself as he saw the Bomb-ombs approaching him.

If there was one thing that could be called the weirdest species in Sonic's book, it would be the Bomb-ombs. When Sonic saw the whole lot of them over in the desert ruin, he had to pinch himself from laughing. And he had a good reason to. The Bomb-ombs looked like walking bombs with feet and no hands at all! How could they be a hazard?

Sonic soon became serious, however, when he saw the cannons pointed at him.

A large Bomb-omb stepped in front of the others but nowhere near Sonic himself. It apparently must have been the leader.

"Halt! What are you doing on King Bomb-omb's territory?" asked the Bomb-omb in a loud squeaky voice.

Once again, Sonic would have laughed at the Bomb-omb's squeaky voice, but thanks to all the cannons pointing at him, Sonic grew serious again and paid attention to the Bomb-omb's comment.

"What was that?"

"What are you doing on King Bomb-omb's land?"

King Bomb-omb! What type of name was that?

"Answer me, or you shall be destroyed!" threatened the Bomb-omb.

Sonic looked down at the Bomb-omb.

"Let me get this straight. Your king is King Bomb-omb?"

"Yes!" yelled all the Bomb-ombs.

"Does this King Bomb-omb look like you in anyway?"

"Yes!" said one.

"Only he's taller!" said another one.

"And stronger!" said yet another.

"And much fatter!" said another one.

At that comment, all the Bomb-ombs turned around and faced their fellow Bomb-omb that made the comment. Seeing that everyone was staring at him, the Bomb-omb slowly made its way to the back and hid behind a pillar. Seeing that the troublemaker was out of view, the Bomb-ombs turned around once again and faced Sonic.

Sonic, now that he had their attention again, started up the questions.

"Is your King Bomb-omb very rich?"

"Yes!" they all said.

"Is he very powerful?"

"Yes!" they chorused.

"And does he own this land that we are all standing on right now?"

"Yes!"

At this reply, Sonic fell to the ground and started laughing. The Bomb-ombs, startled and yet affected by Sonic's behavior, started laughing too.

That is till the leader stared at them angrily. After that, the Bomb-ombs all lined up for attention and waited on their leader's commands. Sonic, however, was still on the ground laughing. The leader, tired of the creature's foolishness, decided to end the pointless laughter from the creature.

"Enough!" commanded the leader, "What is so funny?"

Sonic stopped laughing but stayed on the ground.

"You guys, of course!" said Sonic as he started laughing again, "I have never heard of such stupidity!"

The leader looked at his comrades then back again at Sonic.

"And what may that be?"

Sonic struggled to control his laughter as he told them.

"Your big fat leader that looks exactly like you had sent you guys all here to guard a piece of desert wasteland that is entirely worthless in everyway possible!"

At hearing Sonic's words, all the Bomb-ombs fussed up.

"No one makes fun of our king like that!" said the leader, "You shall die for insulting King Bomb-omb and all of the Bomb-ombs!"

Not recognizing the seriousness in the leader's voice, Sonic continued to laugh.

"Oh yeah, what are you guys going to do without hands?" said Sonic said and continued to laugh.

The leader, now ready to blow his top, stomped off to his comrades.

"Ready the cannons! Aim for the hedgehog!"

Sonic continued laughing till he saw the Bomb-ombs ready their cannons and pointed all of them at his head. It was then that Sonic realized his mistake.

"Oh boy," Sonic said.

"Fire!" said the leader.

"_BAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG_!"

The Bomb-ombs pulled back their cannons and went to see the dead hedgehog. Instead of a dead hedgehog, however, they just saw a large black spot in the sand.

'I'm up here!"

The Bomb-ombs turned around and saw Sonic on top of one of the pillars.

"I was right! You guys are as dumb as you look!" Sonic said cheerfully.

Hearing the insult, the Bomb-ombs aimed their cannons at Sonic.

"Fire!"

"_BAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG_!"

As the cannonballs came flying at him, Sonic jumped off the pillar. The cannonballs, instead of hitting Sonic as the Bomb-ombs wanted, hit the pillar Sonic was standing on. The pillar, destroyed by the force of the explosion, came tumbling down onto the Bomb-ombs. The Bomb-ombs scattered everywhere to avoid getting smashed by the pieces of stones from the broken pillar.

Sonic landed softly on the stone-paved floor of the ruin.

"Finally, back on real solid ground!" Sonic said and gave a grin.

Though not for long.

All the Bomb-ombs, though shaken from accident they had created, went back to their cannons and pointed them at Sonic.

Sonic's grin soon turned into a big smile.

"Time for some fun!"

Mario felt a little breeze hit him in the hot desert sky. That wasn't good. If the wind gets stronger, it could force Mario to crash land onto the desert floor.

And all hopes of finding the hedgehog would be lost.

Keeping his balance in the air, Mario shifted to a better position to fight the little wind current in the air. As long as Mario fought off the wind, it could not harm him.

"_BAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNGGGG_!"

Mario's ears burned with excitement towards the loud bang coming at him. With his ears in pain, Mario fell down a couple feet from the air. Quickly realizing he was losing altitude, Mario quickly ignored the pain and flew back to his normal height. No sooner had he done that when he saw the source of the noise coming at him: a big cannonball.

Mario quickly dodged the cannonball and looked down at the ground, searching for the being that shot at him. There on the sand was a small ruin, and in the ruin was a battalion of Bomb-ombs firing at one another. Or, as Mario looked even closer at the scene, something else. Mario's eyes could see a small blue streak of light going back and forth across the ruin, sometimes near the edge of the ruin and sometimes near the Bomb-ombs themselves. Mario recognized immediately what that blue streak was.

"It's the hedgehog!" Mario said, blurting his thoughts out loud.

It was, indeed, the hedgehog!

Mario studied the situation that was going on on the ground. The hedgehog was playing games with the whole Bomb-omb battalion! Even he, who was a mighty good fighter, would think twice before taking on a whole battalion of Bomb-ombs! But this creature apparently feared nothing, and he seemed to be doing a grand job at fighting the army single handedly.

Mario approached carefully to the ruin, trying to keep out of sight of both the Bomb-ombs and the hedgehog. As Mario prepared his landing, he suddenly saw the hedgehog right in front of his eyes. It was too busy with the Bomb-ombs to notice Mario, making him an easy target to attack. Mario thought it through; it wasn't very honorable to attack an opponent from behind but then again, this was a desperate situation. Besides, the hedgehog seemed to take no honor in fighting, so it probably wouldn't hurt Mario's honor this one time. Making his decision, Mario dived down at Sonic, forming a large fireball in his hands. It was all over now for the hedgehog and his battle plans.

"_Pow_!"

A huge cannonball rammed into Mario's side, sending him far out into the desert and away from the battle. Mario tried to move the cannonball away from him, but the cannonball was creating too much force to be stopped. As Mario wrestled with the cannonball, he noticed that he was going to crash; in a pit of quicksand that is.

Seeing the danger coming rapidly towards him, Mario quickly climbed on top of the cannonball and held on to the top. The cannonball, along with Mario, quickly fell into the quicksand pit. The cannonball quickly started sinking, but Mario, who was on top of the cannonball, quickly jumped off the cannonball and onto the desert sand. Mario watched as the cannonball sank out of sight in the quicksand, then he fell down onto the desert sand. His side was aching from the impact from the ball, and he quickly went to sleep.

Sonic was laughing out loud as he dodged the cannonballs that were being shot from the Bomb-omb's cannons. The Bomb-ombs increased the power of their cannons and fired more rapidly, but they proved to be of no match to Sonic's amazing speed. Sonic, however, was started to get annoyed by the cannons.

Sonic suddenly dashed through the Bomb-omb battalion and stopped at the end of the ruin. Then, Sonic charged the battalion. The battalion fired their cannons, but Sonic easily outmaneuvered the cannonballs. As he approached the cannons, Sonic immediately spun into a tight powerful ball and headed for the nearest cannon. Sonic's powerful ball easily broke the cannon, causing it to blow up. As the Bomb-ombs watched in awe, Sonic destroyed the cannons back and forth like a pinball in a slot machine. Once the last cannon was destroyed, Sonic stopped spinning and stood in front of the surprised Bomb-ombs.

"You guys give up?"

The leader of the Bomb-ombs quickly made his way through the battalion and faced Sonic.

"The Bomb-ombs never quit a fight! If we can't destroy you with our cannons, then we shall sacrifice ourselves to destroy our enemy!"

Sonic just shrugged at his comment.

"How are you going to fight me if you have no hands?" Sonic asked jokingly.

"Like this!" said the leader and the fuse on his head suddenly lit. The other Bomb-ombs copied their leader and soon enough, their fuses were lit too. They then charged at Sonic.

Sonic watched them in confusement.

"Hey, what's going on here?" he asked.

The leader of the Bomb-ombs ran up to Sonic, and when he was close enough to Sonic, he blew up right in Sonic's face. Sonic backed away from the explosion, coughing from all the dust that was created from the leader Bomb-omb. As he stopped to catch his breathe, Sonic saw the rest of the Bomb-ombs charging him, ready to blow up to destroy their one enemy. Sonic quickly ran away just in time as the whole battalion exploded. The explosion knocked down many of the pillars, which Sonic quickly dodged. Seeing that the explosion was bigger than he thought, Sonic dashed through the ruin to avoid getting crushed by the collapsing ruin.

The explosion woke Mario up from his sleep. Mario quickly got off the ground and ran up one of the sand dunes to watch what was happening. To his amazement, Mario saw the entire ruin collapsing. Wanting to take a closer look, Mario quickly put on his winged cap and flew over to the big mess.

Once over the ruin, Mario looked down desperately for a sign of the hedgehog, but he saw neither the hedgehog nor a Bomb-omb in sight. It was then that Mario realized that the whole battalion of Bomb-ombs must have self destruct. No other possibility could have caused such an explosion.

Mario flew around the broken ruin, looking for the hedgehog.

Sonic quickly dashed out of the ruin as the whole thing suddenly collapse. A big pile of sand flew into Sonic's face, blinding him from seeing the ruin. Sonic heard some objects flying at him, and he quickly jumped over one large wood piece and caught another one in the air. After that, the wind died down, and everything was quiet once again.

Sonic stayed where he was, holding the wooden board in his hand. Seeing that nothing was happening, Sonic tossed the board in the air and caught it again.

"Man!" Sonic said in amazement, "And I thought Knuckles was hot-headed!"

Sonic turned to continue his journey, but then he saw something flying in the sky.

"What is that?" Sonic asked as he saw the object come closer to his view.

At first, it looked like just another vulture in the sky, but then as it came closer, Sonic recognized what it was.

"Not him again!" Sonic complained, "Doesn't this guy ever give up!"

Mario easily saw Sonic standing on the sand near the collapsed ruin. He grinned as he approached him, his hands starting to form fireballs. This was what Mario was waiting for: to face the hedgehog when he was tired from his previous battle. It would be a lot easier to destroy him.

Sonic saw Mario approach him from the sky and grew uneasy about it. Sonic turned around but came into disappointment when he saw a ledge in his path. With the ruin in front of him, and the ledge behind him, Sonic was trapped.

Mario took advantage of Sonic's predicament and threw a couple of fireballs at Sonic.

Sonic saw the fireballs and tap danced away from them. Suddenly, Sonic felt his one foot on the ledge. Sonic turned around and saw that if he took another step, he would fall off the ledge and slide down the sand slide into the quicksand pit down below it.

Sonic turned and saw Mario prepare a large fireball in between his two hands. Seeing no other choice ate hand, Sonic made his final decision.

"I hope this works!" said Sonic, "Gerrromino!"

And with that, Sonic leapt off the ledge.

Mario stopped powering his fireball and flew down to the ledge. The hedgehog was foolish enough to kill himself rather than stay and fight Mario. Mario grinned at the hedgehog's decision.

That grin soon disappeared off of Mario's face.

Down on the sand slide was Sonic, surfing on it with the wood board he had in his hand.

"Woo hoo!" yelled Sonic who was enjoying the free ride.

Mario just watched in amazement as Sonic surfed down the side with remarkable speed and balance. Never had he seen someone so daring to try out new dangerous tricks.

Sonic laughed all the way down the sand slide but then stopped as he faced an obstacle: the quicksand pit. Positioning his body for a better position, Sonic surfed on toward the danger that lied ahead. Mario watched in interest.

As he landed in the quicksand pit, Sonic spun his board around and around at lightning speed. Spinning around quickly on the surface, Sonic and his wood board floated on the quicksand as if he were on a regular wave in the ocean. After making sure the board was floating on the sand, Sonic quickly made his way to edge of the pit where there was a ledge that led to solid ground. Timing his movements carefully, Sonic made one long jump with his board and landed on top of the ledge and on solid ground. He was safe, for now.

Mario couldn't move from his spot. How could he do that? It was impossible to do a trick like that, but this creature had just broken the impossible. Just who was he up against anyway?

Mario woke up from his thoughts and watched the hedgehog from the ledge, waiting for its next move.

Sonic playfully kicked the wood board up in the air and caught it as it came back down.

"Man, I haven't had that much fun for a while!" Sonic remarked with a wide smile on his face.

After fooling around with his wooden board, Sonic placed the board on the ground and looked up in awe at a mysterious figure in front of him: a large golden pyramid shining in the desert sun.

Sonic looked around the pyramid for the desert, but instead, the entire desert was engulfed in a large quicksand pit. The sand bar that Sonic and the pyramid was on was the only piece of solid seen for miles; the rest was covered in a vast ocean of quicksand.

Sonic turned his eyes back to the pyramid. At the base of the pyramid was a small opening large enough for him to walk through. Seeing that there was nowhere else to go, Sonic slowly walked through the pyramid's entrance and into the pyramid itself.

Mario waited on the sandy ledge as he saw the hedgehog walk into the pyramid. The hedgehog was much smarter than Mario had thought he was. Mario was expecting it to take a dash across the quicksand pit, but the hedgehog was smart enough to know that it would probably not survive for long on the shifting surface of the sand. Mario was impressed at not only the hedgehog's physical abilities, but at its intelligence as well.

Too bad he was a dangerous adversary that needed to be destroyed.

Mario slowly backed away from the ledge. No way was he going to try the stunt that the hedgehog had accomplished; he was going to be smart and do it the safer way: by flight. Mario put his flying cap back on his head and made a long jump off the ledge and into the air. The wings on the cap immediately started flapping, trying to hold Mario's weight in the air. As soon as he was well balanced in the air, Mario flew towards the pyramid, knowing that he had to find the hedgehog before it found an exit out of this desert.

The torches along the walls of the pyramid were the only source of light that Sonic received inside the pyramid. Sonic had to squint his eyes at times to make out an object inside the pyramid. But being partly blind inside a dark pyramid didn't worry Sonic at all; it was all part of the adventure.

What Sonic really needed, however, was a map to the whole pyramid. Sonic had ran into several dead ends during his wanderings, and even now, it seemed he was about to hit another one.

Unfortunate for Sonic, he was wrong.

As Sonic made his was around a corner, he came to an edge of a pit filled with quicksand. Instead of looking at the negative sides of his travels, however, Sonic decided to reflect on the positives first.

"Oh Well!" Sonic said, "At least I didn't run into another dead end."

Sonic desperately looked for a way to cross the quicksand pit. He soon found the solution: a large wire net hanging over the pit.

Sonic jumped up and grabbed hold of the net. Unsure if the net could hold his weight, Sonic slowly moved above the pit and landed on the other side of the pit.

Only to come to another dead end.

"No way!" Sonic said angrily, "There's got to be a way out of this pyramid!"

Sonic stomped his way up to the wall and looked up. There was another ledge above Sonic's head, but it was too high to jump to it. Instead, Sonic quickly dashed back and forth between the two walls of the pyramid until he managed to grab hold of the ledge. Sonic quickly climbed up the edge and continued his journey.

Mario carefully landed on the top of the pyramid. There was a small hole in one of the sides of the pyramid. Seeing it, Mario cautiously lowered himself down the hole onto a stone brick floor. Seeing that there was no danger, Mario cautiously made his way through the pyramid's hallway.

Sonic followed the pathway the torches had lit through the pyramid. He was slowly making his way to the top of the pyramid without encountering many obstacles. Still, Sonic kept a watchful eye out for trouble.

After walking up a small fleet of stairs, Sonic was sure now that he was on the top floor. Sonic quickened his pace across the hallway till something on the wall caught his attention. Sonic stopped walking and stared at the wall.

The wall was marked with hieroglyphics, but in the center of them all was a large stone carved picture carved deep inside the wall. Sonic took a close look at the picture.

It was a picture of a hedgehog.

Sonic quickly shook his head, thinking that he was imagining the whole thing. But when Sonic looked again, it was the same thing: a picture of a big blue hedgehog holding a gemstone in its hand.

Sonic stared at the picture, not sure at first what to make of it. If it wasn't so old, Sonic would have thought it looked like himself.

Himself!

Sonic's head soon exploded with new ideas and thoughts that just came from the one picture on the wall. The hedgehog in the carving was rather mean looking, and it also held what appeared to be an emerald in its hand. Still, something wasn't right. The image resembled Sonic in a way, but there was a type of darkness surrounding it; darkness that Sonic never cared about.

"Metal."

The word just came out of his mouth. That's what the image represented: Metal, Sonic's mechanical look alike. And the gem in his hand must be a chaos emerald!

This explained a lot of things. No wonder why that little human was always trying to destroy him. That little man was probably deceived into believing that Sonic was the real villain, not Metal. If Sonic ever found out who told that dreadful lie he was going to…

"_Beep_!"

Sonic quickly tried to remember in his over crowed mind what that noise was.

"_Beep_!"

"Tail's emerald tracker!"

Sonic quickly got out the tracker and turned on the screen. The tracker was really beeping, and the dot was glowing very red. A chaos emerald must be here in the pyramid!

Suddenly, a loud pounding caught Sonic's attention.

Sonic turned around and saw a huge stone figure looking angrily down at him.

"Intruder!" the stone figure said in a very loud voice and tried to grab Sonic.

Sonic quickly jumped over the stone figure and dashed away; only to hit a stone wall that was in this path. Sonic rubbed his sore head and looked to see that he had found another dead end.

"Intruder! Golem will make you pay for waking him!"

Sonic quickly turned around to face the stone giant.

"What if I just leave quietly and let you get back to sleep? It could avoid any violence."

Golem's answer to Sonic's reply was a large ground thud coming from the force of his fists. The stone blocks under Sonic's feet soon became loose and Sonic fell down to the second floor.

As Sonic slowly got up, he felt the ground suddenly shake under his feet. Sonic turned around and faced the enraged Golem, who had jumped down from the top floor onto the second one.

"You will pay for ever entering the pyramid!" yelled Golem.

"I'm already sorry I ever came in it," Sonic replied back.

Sonic's reply only seemed to anger Golem even worse. Golem charged up to Sonic and tried to punch him with his big stony fists. Sonic quickly dodged the attack, but then Golem grabbed him with his one hand and punched him with the other one. The force of the blow sent Sonic flying against the wall.

Even though he was in pain, Sonic quickly stood up and faced Golem.

"Okay Pal! I tried to be nice!"

Sonic quickly spun into a hard ball and launched himself at Golem's face. Golem tried to block his attack, but Sonic was too fast for him. Sonic rammed into Golem's face, sending pieces of stone flying everywhere. Sonic landed and watched as the stone giant quickly crumbled into a thousand pieces.

"Good riddance," said Sonic and turned to look for the emerald.

Suddenly, a glowing light appeared in front of Sonic. The rocky remains of the stone giant quickly reassembled together, bringing Golem back to life.

And Golem wasn't happy.

"You made Golem very angry! I shall crush you!" roared Golem and did another ground thud with his fists.

"Not again," Sonic said as the floor once again crumbled under his feet. Having no foothold, Sonic once again fell down another floor level of the pyramid.

Sonic crashed landed onto a huge stone that had broken many years before. Around the large stone were other large rocks all floating on top of a pool of quicksand.

"I thought I was free from this stuff," Sonic said as he tried to balance on the shaky rock.

After he found his balance, Sonic looked up at Golem who was still on the second floor. Instead of staying there, though, the dumb giant jumped off the ledge and onto Sonic's rock. Sonic went flying off the rock and luckily crashed onto another one. Sonic quickly got up and faced his adversary.

"Golem shall never be defeated! I'm all powerful!" said Golem and, to Sonic's surprise, he held out a large yellow gem in his hand.

"A chaos emerald!" Sonic said.

"Now Golem has power!"

The emerald glowed in Golem's hand, and Sonic's rock suddenly exploded. Sonic jumped quickly to another rock, but then that rock exploded too. Running out of rocks, Sonic land on a large rock and thought out a new strategy. Apparently, Golem was using the emerald's power to give him power over the whole pyramid. If Sonic could just somehow get the emerald, Golem would be easy to defeat. An idea suddenly popped into Sonic's head.

"Hey Golem!" yelled Sonic, "Do you know what you are good for? You're good for building stone houses!"

Sonic's smart remark greatly angered Golem.

"You dare make fun of Golem! Golem shall crush you!" said Golem and with that, Golem used the emerald to have the sand tilt up the one end of the rock which tossed Sonic in the air.

This was what Sonic was waiting for. Sonic quickly got out his power ring and rolled into a large ball in the air. Having gathered enough power, Sonic charged at Golem's head and smashed it. Before Sonic left, however, he quickly grabbed the emerald out of Golem's hand and landed on a large rock near the pyramid's entrance.

Golem, without the power of the emerald, crumbled apart into small rock sized pieces which then sank into the quicksand. The all powerful Golem was defeated.

Sonic jumped over to the entrance and then looked at the emerald he had. It was the second one he had recovered, and the second one he had kept out of Eggman's grip. After admiring it for a while, Sonic put the emerald away and walked over to the exit.

Suddenly, the whole pyramid shook. The stone ceiling was crumbling down as the wall to the pyramid started to collapse. Sand started to come up from the stone floor. Sonic suddenly realized what was going on: the pyramid was sinking!

Sonic went toward the exit, but a large stone suddenly fell down and blocked the entrance. With the escape route now blocked, Sonic looked for another way out. To his fortune, Sonic saw a large green pipe sticking out of the floor. Without thinking on what to do, Sonic quickly dived into the pipe and escaped the pyramid.

Up on the top floor, Mario felt the pyramid starting to shake. Mario immediately ran across the wall and found a large green pipe sticking in the ground. Without even thinking about the hedgehog, Mario quickly jumped in the green pipe; just barely escaping the collapse of the whole rooftop of the pyramid.


	7. Chapter 7: Ghost Town

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 7**

**Ghost Town**

"Woooaaaah!"

Sonic was sliding down the pipe at an alarming speed. Sonic had no way to slow down, but then again, Sonic didn't want to. He was enjoying sliding down the pipe at a fast speed, and he wished it wouldn't end for awhile.

Despite his wish, the end of the pipe came into view, and Sonic flew out of the pipe and into a pool of water.

"Ah! Help me! Help me!" cried Sonic as he struggled in the pool of water.

Only to finally notice that he was only in a foot of water.

"Oh," Sonic said and quickly stood up in the shallow pool of water.

A bunch of eerie laughs suddenly filled the air right next to Sonic.

Sonic quickly turned around, but all that he was capable of seeing was darkness. Sonic waited for a while for the laughs to return, but when they didn't, Sonic stepped out of water and walked forward cautiously. It was dreadfully dark, and Sonic was unable to see what was in front of him. Sonic instinctively put his hands out in front of him to avoid colliding into an object in the dark.

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Sonic suddenly tripped over a metal object on the ground. Sonic fell down and banged his head into a large hard object.

"That really worked," Sonic said sarcastically, rubbing his sore hand with his hand.

The eerie laughs suddenly filled the air again.

Sonic quickly ignored his head and stood up to see what laughed at him. Instead, all that Sonic saw was pitch blackness.

"That's it! I need a light!" Sonic said angrily.

Sonic looked around eagerly for a source of light, but all that Sonic saw was darkness. Sonic sighed. How was he going to get out of this place and find the emeralds if he…

"Wait a second!" Sonic said excitedly.

Sonic immediately pulled out Tail's emerald tracker and pressed on of the buttons. A small light suddenly appeared before Sonic, allowing him to see what was in front of him.

The light rested on a large green pipe that stood in Sonic's way.

Sonic quickly turned around and saw a small pipe along the ground. That was what he must have tripped over, and he must have hit his head against the green pipe. No wonder why his head was aching!

Sonic quickly jumped on top of the pipe and looked around with his small flashlight. Thanks to the light, Sonic could see hundreds of pipes along the walls, the ceiling, and the ground. There was a lot of leakage coming out of the pipes, and many small pools of water formed along the cold stone ground. Sonic sighed at the sight. He had just escaped a desert wasteland only to end up in a sewer system.

"Welcome to Pipeline City!" said a loud eerie voice.

Shaken by the spooky voice, Sonic lost his balance and fell down into the large pipe.

"Whoa!" Sonic yelled as he quickly slid down the pipe at a quick speed. Sonic soon approached the end of the pipe and flew out of it head first. Luckily for Sonic, he landed in a large pool of water.

This time, however, the water was more than a foot deep in length.

Sonic quickly sank to the bottom of the pool. Just when he touched the bottom, however, a strong current dragged Sonic away from the spot he was at and brought his head up to the surface.

Sonic gasped as his head made it up to the surface and looked to see where the current was taking him. To his horror, Sonic saw a large waterfall in front of him. If Sonic fell down the waterfall, he would most likely be crushed by the hard rocks down at the bottom of it.

Sonic desperately looked for a something to grab onto, but he was in the middle of sewage river, and he couldn't swim to the bank of the river. As he approached the waterfall, Sonic saw a large pipe sticking in the ceiling. As soon as Sonic went over the waterfall, he quickly jumped up towards the large pipe and grabbed on to its rim. When he had a good hold of its rim, Sonic quickly went inside the pipe. The pipe was big enough to move around in, so Sonic quickly started to climb up the large pipe. When he saw the end of the pipe, Sonic quickened his pace, and soon enough, Sonic jumped out of the pipe and landed on the cold stony ground.

"That was close," Sonic said and brushed the water out of his spikes.

As soon as he was completely dry, Sonic pulled out the emerald tracker and turned on its light. All that Sonic saw around him was large green pipes. Nothing else was in the room Sonic was in.

"Great," Sonic said, not really happy that he was in another pipe maze.

"_Beep_!"

Sonic quickly looked down at the tracker's screen. A large red dot was blinking just south of his location. An emerald was here in the sewer!

Sonic looked up from the screen and looked again at the pipes all around him. Sonic remembered that he had escaped the pyramid by going down a pipe and into the sewer system. Perhaps he could use the pipes to find the emerald!

Sonic ran over to one of the pipes in the ceiling and jumped into it, unaware that his every move was being watched by dozens of eyes.

Mario plopped out of his pipe and landed on his feet calmly onto the cold stony floor of the sewer. Once he landed, Mario carefully dusted off all the sand that was on his clothes and his hat. Once he was done with that, Mario went to look in front of him, but instead, all that Mario saw was darkness.

Mario took off his hat and scratched his head. Mario knew where he was at, but before, there was always a light to help guide people who fell into the sewers. Now, there was no light at all: just pitch blackness everywhere.

The darkness bothered Mario; it wasn't usual for the whole sewer to be dark. He had just checked the lights the other day before he started chasing the…

Mario's eyes suddenly grew big. The hedgehog! He lost track of the hedgehog!

Mario, disappointed over losing the powerful enemy, punched the wall hard with his fist.

A bit too hard, to be exact.

"Oh!" Mario yelled in his Italian accent. Mario quickly blew on his sore hand to ease the pain he had just caused it.

Suddenly, a bunch of eerie laughs filled the air.

Mario, despite the pain in his hand, stopped blowing and listened quietly. He could have sworn he had heard some laughs and not just any laughs.

The eerie laughs started up again; this time from behind. Mario quickly turned around and saw five Boo ghosts laughing at Mario in the dark. When they saw that they had been discovered, however, they quickly stopped laughing and disappeared in the darkness. Once again, just plain darkness was all that Mario could see.

Even after the Boo ghosts had disappeared, Mario still felt some uneasiness dwelling around him. Normally, the Boo ghosts (who were ruled by Big Boo) stayed in a haunted mansion on the other side of the Mushroom Kingdom, but now that there was no light in the sewer, they had moved in here.

And that meant trouble.

The Boo ghosts were a species unlike any other in the kingdom. Their whole purpose in life revolved around scaring innocent folks and even at times, killing those who were too foolish to leave their habitat. They were well organized in planning schemes, but if they came into contact with light or were faced by a serious person, they would quickly disappear. Of course, nothing could really kill them: they were ghosts, after all.

And that was what made them so difficult to handle.

Mario awoke from his thoughts when he noticed his body was moving without himself moving it. When Mario tried to stop, his body suddenly picked up speed. Not being able to see in the dark, Mario instinctively put his hands in front of him just in case his body rammed into a pipe.

Instead, however, Mario's body went over a ledge. Mario's body floated in the sky awhile, but when Mario saw the Boo ghost come out of his body, he fell down into a pool of sewage water.

The Boo ghost, along with a bunch of other ones, laughed as Mario quickly jumped out of the dirty water. Mario took his hat off his head and wrung it dry, but there was nothing he could do about his clothing. Mario just hoped he had a chance to clean up before he met the princess again.

Ignoring the Boos' laughs, Mario looked for a sign of light, but still he saw nothing but darkness. Mario sighed: he just had enough with this darkness.

Suddenly, Mario's body moved again.

"Oh no!" Mario said and tried to stop his body from moving. His body, however, did not obey Mario and suddenly flew up into the air and hit the ceiling.

"Oh!"

Mario's body then came flying back down to the hard ground. Mario put his hands in front of his face to protect it from the collusion.

Suddenly Mario's body arched in the air and flugged it self against a large pipe. Mario whimpered in pain as his body fell lifelessly on the floor.

The Boo came out of Mario's body and started laughing. The rest of the Boos joined in with their eerie laughter.

Mario, despite his whole body hurting, quickly got up and stared angrily at the Boos. When the Boos saw Mario staring at them, they stopped laughing and disappeared. Mario knew they would be back.

"I need a light," said Mario.

Suddenly, an idea came into Mario's head. Mario quickly formed a large flame in his hand, giving off enough light for Mario to see his surroundings.

Mario smiled as he held the flame in his hand.

"The human torch, eh," Mario said, remembering what the hedgehog had called him when they first met, "I guess I could live up to that name."

A bunch of eerie laughs came from behind Mario.

Mario quickly turned around and saw the Boo ghosts laughing at him. When they saw him staring at them with a large flame in his hand, however, they quickly turned invisible.

"Oh no you don't!" yelled Mario and quickly threw his flame at the nearest Boo. The fireball went through the Boo's body, but it frightened the Boo enough to make it suddenly fly away into one of the walls. The other Boos quickly followed their scared pal and disappeared into the wall as well. Once again Mario was alone.

"Good," Mario said.

Mario quickly formed another large flame in his hand and walked along the stony path in the sewer. He wasn't sure where the hedgehog was, but most likely he would show himself again. All that Mario could do was to find the right pipe that led him to the hedgehog's location.

Sonic's head quickly came out of the large pipe he was in. Nope, no emerald here.

Sonic leapt out of the pipe and climbed into another large pipe next to the one he was in. Reaching the other end of it, Sonic poked his head out again to look for the glow of a chaos emerald. Instead, all that he saw was darkness.

Sonic jumped out of the pipe and landed on the cool ground. Though Sonic couldn't see anything, he knew there were just a lot of pipes in the room. That was he ever found: pipes, pipes, and more pipes!

Sonic took out the emerald tracker and looked at the screen. The dot remained where it was on the screen with the same gentle beeping. He wasn't getting closer to the emerald.

Sonic sighed and turned on the light, so he could see better. He had already looked through a dozen pipes and was not one step closer to the emerald then he was before. He was going in circles!

Frustrated, Sonic went to the nearest pipe and jumped. Instead of falling into the pipe, however, his body stopped in midair. Sonic's anger was quickly replaced with confusement as he saw his body floating above the pipe. Sonic tried to move his body, but his body stayed put to where it was at.

Growing impatient, Sonic once again tried to move his body and was successful. Sonic came closer to the pipe, but suddenly, his body jerked in midair and flew through the air at an alarming speed. Sonic tried to stop, but it was clear to him that he was now no longer in control of his body.

Sonic's body continued to fly through the sewer till he came to a large pipe sticking in the ceiling. Seeing the pipe, Sonic quickly put his hands out in front of him to protect his face.

Instead of ramming into the pipe, however, Sonic's body suddenly stopped in midair. To his surprise, Sonic saw a small ghost phasing out of his body and flew in front of his face.

"Bye, bye!" it said and waved it hands at Sonic.

At hearing that, Sonic fell out of the air and landed face first onto the cold stone floor. Sonic slowly got up off the floor and rubbed his head. His head was aching severely from the collision, and the rest of his body was bruised. Too weak to stand for long, Sonic's feet stumbled, and Sonic fell down to the cold floor. Sonic's eyes slowly closed together, and unaware of his surroundings, Sonic slowly fell asleep.

As Sonic slept peacefully on the floor, the small Boo ghost gave out a small shriek, which was then answered by some more shrieks. Dozens of Boo ghosts came out of the walls of the sewer and joined their small comrade who was floating above Sonic's still form. When they saw Sonic, the Boos laughed quietly and looked at one another, trying to figure out what to do with their unconscious victim. When they finally seemed to agree on something, one of the Boos phased into Sonic's body, lifted him off the ground, and made its way through the sewer's darkness. The other Boos followed close behind, laughing through the darkness as they carried their victim to the darkest part of the sewer.

Mario cautiously made his way down the pipe and landed softly onto the ground. With the fire flame still in his hand, Mario examined his surroundings for a clue of where he was at. To his disappointment, all that Mario saw was a large wall in front of him and behind him. There was nothing else in the room besides the pipe he had just come out of. It was a dead end.

Mario sighed out his disappointment. Although he knew the sewer more then he knew about his own hat, Mario just couldn't figure out where he was with just the little light he had in his hand. If he was going to find the hedgehog, he had to fix the lights to the sewer in order to find his way in it, but then again, Mario did not know what was wrong with the lights. He had seen many of them along his way and had checked them for any sign of damage. They were all in perfect condition, but they wouldn't turn back on. Something must be preventing them from turning back on.

And it sure didn't help Mario to have the all the lights off in the sewer. From what Mario could tell, he was lost in the sewer!

Seeing there was nothing else to do but to go back, Mario went over to the pipe when he suddenly heard an eerie laugh coming from behind him. Recognizing the laugh, Mario quickly duck just when a Boo ghost tried to phase into him. Mario then punched the ghost from behind sending it crashing into the wall. Recovering from Mario's blow, the Boo quickly phased into the wall to escape Mario's fireball. Seeing it disappeared, Mario quickly ran up to the wall and put his ear against it.

From the other side of the wall, Mario could hear the eerie laughs of many Boo ghosts, and one giant laugh that stood out of all the other ones. Mario recognized the giant laugh: Big Boo, the ruler of the Boo ghosts.

Mario stepped back from the wall and pulled out his vanishing cap. Mario put the cap on his head, and his whole body soon turned invisible and phasable. Mario then blew out his fire flame and walked through the wall that separated him from Big Boo.

Once he made it through the wall onto the other side, Mario noticed that the room he had just entered was much darker than anywhere else in the sewer. Dozens of Boo ghosts, not noticing Mario, flew playfully across the room, laughing the whole time. There were no sign of a pipe anywhere in the room, but it was better than a dead end.

Mario slowly walked across the room. The Boos, even if they were paying attention, could not see Mario and continued on with their silly games. Mario gave a small grin: so this was what it felt like to be invisible to everybody else. Now the Boos will know how it fells to not know the presence of a stranger.

Enjoying the feeling of being invisible, Mario crossed the room and came up to another wall. Mario, not discouraged at all by the road block, walked through the wall and into another room filled with even more Boos than the other one. Still, Mario was quiet enough to sneak past them and phased through the next wall into the next room.

This room, unlike the other ones Mario had just passed through, had no Boos anywhere in sight. It was very dark in the room; dark enough to stop Mario in his tracks. Mario couldn't see anything, not even the wall he had just came through. He needed a light if he was to go on.

Making sure there were no Boos in sight, Mario slowly formed a large flame in his hands, giving off enough light for Mario to see the room he was in. To his surprise, Mario was able to see a large pipe sticking out of the ceiling at the other side of the room. Forgetting about the Boos in the other room, Mario ran along the stony floor to the pipe. It wouldn't be long now before he would catch up with the hedgehog.

Suddenly, Mario's cap came off of Mario's head. Mario's body immediately became visible again. Seeing his body change, Mario stopped running and looked down at the ground for his vanishing cap. Instead of seeing it on the floor, however, Mario saw his cap floating in the air.

"Okay! Now give it back!" ordered Mario and went to grab his cap.

A loud eerie laugh came from the Mario's cap. Surprised by the loud laugh, Mario jumped and fell down to the stony ground. A large shadowy figure phased out of Mario's cap, dropping the cap right at Mario's feet. Mario quickly picked it up and stared in awe as the shadowy figure turned visible, revealing a large Boo ghost in front of him. Mario recognized the ghost: Big Boo.

Big Boo let out another loud laugh as Mario got up off the ground. Mario put away his vanishing cap and stared up at Big Boo, hoping to intimidate the big bully.

Unlike the other Boo ghosts that disappeared when Mario stared at them, Big Boo was unaffected by Mario's stare.

"Unlike my brothers, I do not cower away when being confronted," Big Boo said in an eerie voice and let out another of his loud laughs.

Mario, however, did not break his stare.

"What are you and your kind doing down here in the sewer? You are only allowed to live in the haunted house on the other side of the Mushroom Kingdom!"

Big Boo just laughed at Mario's remark.

"Commands just go through us like everything else does. We only lived in the haunted house because it was the only dark place that provided us shelter from the sunlight." Big Boo said, "But now, the Boos can live anywhere we like in the Mushroom Kingdom."

Mario listened to Big Boo's reply but was not satisfied with it.

"You still didn't answer my question."

"Oh, I believe I just did!" laughed Big Boo, "Thanks to our magic rock, we can now go anywhere that we please."

Mario's eyes grew big.

"Magic rock?"

Big Boo laughed at Mario's reply.

"Yes, we had just found a magic rock the other day at the haunted house. With its power, we have turned your sewer into a major ghost town!"

Mario stared surprisingly at Big Boo.

"So that's why all the lights are off!" Mario said, "There is nothing wrong with them at all. You used your magic rock to make it dark down here all the time!"

"And that's not all." said Big Boo, "As soon as we figure out how to do it; my brothers and I will use that magic rock to bring eternal darkness to the Mushroom Kingdom."

"What?"

"Oh yes, Mario! You can say goodbye to your sun because it will soon be gone forever!"

Big Boo broke out with another of his laughs while Mario stared angrily up at him.

"Not unless I stop you from doing it!"

Big Boo stopped laughing and looked down at Mario.

"You? Stopping me? I like me a challenge!" said Big Boo, and saying that, he charged at Mario.

Mario quickly jumped over Big Boo and punched him from behind. Big Boo tumbled a bit in the air but then regained his balance and stared down at Mario.

"You forget, Mario, that in pure darkness I am at my most powerful form!" he said and charged at Mario.

Mario dropped down to the ground just as Big Boo passed above him. Getting off the ground, Mario threw a couple of fireballs at Big Boo, hoping to do some damage. Big Boo saw the fireballs and caught them in his mouth. Mario watched in interest as Big Boo moved the fireballs back and forth in his mouth till they came together.

Mario then realized what he had just done.

"Mamma Mea!"

Big Boo opened his big mouth and blew out a large flame of fire at Mario. Mario quickly jumped out of the way and looked at Big Boo. Big Boo let out another of his eerie laughs and charged at Mario. Seeing Big Boo charging again, Mario also charged at Big Boo.

The duel had begun.

"Oh, my head."

Sonic put his hand on his aching head to help calm it down. His eyes slowly opened up.

To see a Boo ghost right in front of his face!

"BOOOOO!"

"Ah!" Sonic screamed and instinctively backed away from the scary figure.

Only to trip over a floating crowbar in the air.

Sonic fell down to the ground, only to be suddenly lifted up into the air and thrown against a wall.

Sonic slowly fell down to the ground, his whole body now aching in pain. A bunch of eerie laughs filled the air as Sonic tried to stand up again.

"Hello?" Sonic said, hoping that someone would answer.

Instead, the laughs only increased in volume.

Sonic stood straight up and bended his back to make sure it was alright. At the sudden movement, the bones in Sonic's back cracked.

The laughs increased even more.

Sonic's eyes quickly peered into the darkness, but he failed to see anything. He needed some light.

Sonic went to grab the emerald tracker, only to discover it was missing. Sonic tried his best to look into the darkness to find his missing tracker. Luckily, Sonic could see it on the floor.

Sonic went to grab it when it suddenly jumped up into the air. Startled, Sonic jumped back from it. As Sonic moved away from it, the tracker suddenly flung itself at Sonic. Sonic ducked as the tracker passed by him, but the tracker then stopped in midair and fell on top of Sonic's aching head.

"Ouch! What's wrong with me?" Sonic said as he rubbed his sore head.

The eerie laughs increased again in volume.

Hearing the laughs, Sonic quickly took the tracker off his head, turned on the light, and shined it into the eyes of a dozen Boo ghosts. Having the lights shine on them, the Boos quickly disappeared. Sonic began to relax.

"_BEEEEEEPP_!"

Sonic looked down at the tracker's screen. The dot was flashing wildly, and the beeping quickened its pace. Sonic smiled at the result: he was close to the emerald.

Sonic shined the light around the room he was in, expecting a lot of pipes to be in his way. To his surprise, Sonic saw that there was not a pipe in sight; it was one big room. Sonic grinned; now it was easier to find the chaos emerald!

Sonic quickly dashed across the room until he came to a stone wall. A lot of eerie laughs were heard on the other side of the wall. Sonic looked at the tracker's screen; the dot was really flashing.

"Well, I hope they don't mind me crashing their party!" Sonic laughed and immediately spun into a tight ball and broke through the wall. The Boos stopped laughing and scattered when Sonic returned to his normal stance and looked at the tracker. Yep, he was getting closer.

Sonic then realized that the Boos were all staring at him, their humor now gone out of them and pure anger that replaced it. The Boos approached Sonic quickly.

"I guess they did mind me crashing their party," Sonic said and quickly dashed away from the Boos across the room. The Boos, enraged at the hedgehog for interrupting their party, followed after him.

Mario quickly jumped over the charging Boo king and kicked him hard from behind. Big Boo immediately crashed to the floor. Mario landed softly behind him, grabbed his tail, and swung around and around the room. Big Boo yelled in horror as Mario suddenly let him go, sending him into the wall. Big Boo shook his big head and approached Mario but did not attack.

"You think you are capable of killing a ghost?" asked Big Boo.

"Anything is possible," replied Mario.

"Well, it looks like I got to tell you that ghosts don't die!" yelled Big Boo and charged at Mario.

Mario jumped to avoid Big Boo's charge, but unfortunately, Big Boo was waiting for him. Big Boo immediately changed the course of his charge and phased into Mario's body. Now inside his opponent's body, Big Boo pounded Mario's body against the ceiling and against the floor. Then Big Boo jerked Mario's body in midair and sent him against the wall. Mario slowly fell down to the ground as Big Boo phased out of him. Seeing his opponent on the ground, Big Boo gave out another of his loud laughs.

"Not even the great Mario can stop us for we are the Boos!" Big Boo laughed.

Mario slowly got up to his feet but simply fell down again. Big Boo had flung him hard against the wall, and his whole body ached from it. Mario couldn't stand up to face Big Boo.

Big Boo saw how weak Mario was and charged at him saying, "Goodbye Mario!"

Sonic dodged the angry Boos as he made his way across the room, his eyes still glued to the tracker's screen. He was getting closer, he could just feel it!

Sonic eyes left the screen just in time to see a bunch of Boos blocking Sonic's way. Sonic stopped and waited for the Boos to attack, but to his surprise they didn't move from their spot. They watched Sonic with their big eyes, but they remained where they were; as if they were guarding something.

Sonic shined the tracker's light past the Boo blockade and onto a light blue glowing rock: the chaos emerald. The Boos were guarding the chaos emerald.

Determined to get the chaos emerald, Sonic charged the blockade. The Boos, seeing Sonic charging them, charged at Sonic, waiting to phase into him and destroy him from the inside.

Unfortunately, the Boos underestimated Sonic's speed for the last time.

Sonic came up to the Boos and quickly leaped over them. From behind, Sonic quickly turned into a ball and rammed into the Boos. Unprepared for the quick attack, the Boos fell down to the floor in pain, leaving Sonic as the only one standing.

Seeing his adversaries on the ground, Sonic quickly grabbed the chaos emerald. Upon doing that, the emerald glowed even brighter, creating a blinding bright light. Sonic covered his eyes till the bright light disappeared. When he reopened his eyes, Sonic noticed that the room was no longer dark anymore. A bunch of lights hanging along the walls turned on, giving off plenty of light.

Sonic turned around and to his surprise, he saw the Boos disappearing in the shadows of the lights. Once again, Sonic was alone.

Sonic put the emerald away and looked around for a way out of this crazy place. To his delight, Sonic saw a large pipe sticking out of the ceiling.

"Time to get back to the surface," Sonic said and jumped up into the pipe and began climbing up it. He could already see a bright light at the other end of the pipe. Soon he will be out of this cold sewer and back onto the sunny surface.

As Big Boo quickly approached the wounded Mario, a bright light suddenly appeared in front of his face. Big Boo yelled in pain and fell to the ground while Mario, who seemed to be recovering from the light, slowly stood up in the light. His aching body stopped aching and felt renewed in strength. Mario was now ready to battle again.

The bright light quickly disappeared and was replaced with a duller light. Mario looked at the wall and to his surprise, saw the lights working again. The sewer was returning to normal.

Mario looked down at the injured Boo king. Big Boo was slowly but surely disappearing into the light's shadow.

"Someone had stolen our magic rock! Now we can no longer survive here! No! Ghosts can't die! Ghosts can't die!"

Big Boo kept repeating the Boo phrase over and over again as he fully disappeared out of sight. He was finally defeated.

Mario stood where he was for a moment, but when nothing happened; he slowly turned away and approached the pipe in the ceiling. When he came to the pipe, Mario stopped and looked around at the sewer again. Everything was restored back to normal, and that was the way Mario wanted it back at the surface. He had to quickly find the hedgehog and destroy it if he was to bring peace once again to the land. It was his duty.

Having nothing else to think about, Mario slowly crawled up into the pipe and climbed his way up it, unaware of where the pipe would lead him next.


	8. Chapter 8: The True Fiend

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 8**

**The True Fiend**

Making it to the bright end of the green pipe he was in, Sonic cautiously poked his head out of the pipe. He was expecting to see green grass on the ground, but instead, Sonic saw some stone files lining across a beautiful stone floor. The light that Sonic saw came from some bright torches that were hanging along the green walls that seemed to form some sort of hallway.

Sonic sighed deeply. He was in another room in the sewer.

Seeing there was nowhere else to go, Sonic jumped out of the pipe and walked through the hallway to find another pipe that would take him to the surface.

Instead of a pipe, however, Sonic found a wooden door inside the stone wall.

Sonic walked up to the door and cautiously opened it. Inside the door was a stairway that led up to another door. Sonic slowly walked up the stairs and came to the next door. Sonic opened the door only a little to see what was on the other side of it.

Boy! Did he get the surprise of his life!

On the other side of the door was a large hallway that was lined with paintings and statues of different creatures and places that were found in the Mushroom Kingdom. Hanging from the ceiling were some large chandlers that shone enough light in the hallway to replace the sun. The walls had changed from a rugged green color to a beautiful blue and purple color. And throughout the hallway were a dozen or more doors that led to a different room.

Sonic could not take his eyes off the beautiful scene. He had thought he was in the sewer, but now Sonic knew that could not be; he was in some type of castle!

Sonic would have probably dashed down the hallway if his eyes didn't detect some movement coming from the hallway. Sonic closed the door a little and watched as a couple of Toadstool guards walked down the hallway. Since they were busy talking with each other, they did not notice the half opened door and continued their way down the hallway.

When he couldn't hear them anymore, Sonic opened the door wide open and walked out into the hallway. When Sonic came to the middle of the hallway, he gave out a little whistle at how big this hallway was.

Sonic's eyes then rested on one of the doors in the hallway. The handle was turning, and the door flew open.

Sonic quickly jumped high up in the air and caught hold of one of the chandlers. As he was hanging on the chandler, Sonic looked down and saw five Toadstools and a small female human being walk out the door and went down the hallway.

Sonic kept a hold of the chandler till the beings entered into another room inside of one of the doors. Once they closed the door, Sonic dropped down from the chandler and landed on the stone floor.

"That was close," said Sonic.

After making sure no one else was around, Sonic immediately dashed to one of the doors and went through it into another room. In the room, two Toadstool guards stood guarding over another door at the other end of the room. Sonic dashed forward at the door between the guards, opened the door, and shut it quickly as he left the room in a second.

The two Toadstool guards looked at each other with a puzzle look on each of their faces.

"What just happened?" asked the one to the other.

The other guard shrugged.

"I thought I saw the door open quickly, but I did not see anybody go through it."

The guard opened the door, and when he saw nothing unusual, closed it.

"Must have been our imaginations," said the guard.

"Must be," said the other one.

The guard nodded to his approval and went back to his position. Both of the guards, however, knew they weren't imagining anything and that there was something wrong with what just happened.

Mario climbed up to the other end of his pipe and climbed out of it onto a warm stone floor. Mario got up and looked straight into the light of a bright chandler hanging on the ceiling. Mario put his hand to his eyes as he tried to regain his eyesight back. Once he could see again, Mario looked around the room and recognized where he was: Princess Peach's castle.

Mario took his cap off and scratched his head. How did he get into Peach's castle so quickly?

Mario put his cap back on his head and walked away from his pipe. Despite being in a princess's castle, Mario did not feel any guilt about being in it. He was always allowed to come to Peach's castle, and although he didn't come in the front entrance, Mario still thought that Princess Peach wouldn't mind. He would just go down to the throne room and tell Princess Peach that…

"Pee yu!" Mario said and held his nose.

His wet clothes had finally dried off, leaving off a stinky odor.

"I can't see Peach like this," said Mario and quickly ran to one of the doors and opened it. Inside was a rack of different perfumes and colognes. Mario quickly grabbed one of the colognes and sprayed it all over him to get rid of the stinky odor. Once he could no longer smell the odor, Mario put the cologne back and shut the door. At least he could do something about his odor; his clothing was all wrinkled from drying up quickly in the castle. Still, it was better than going to the princess with a stinky odor.

Mario went over to one of the doors and opened it. Mario went through the door and into the room. Inside the room, Mario saw two Toadstool guards guarding one of the doors. They recognized Mario instantly.

"Hello Mario!"

"Hello," Mario replied back and went toward the one door that leaded to the hallway.  
"Mario!"

Mario turned around and looked at the two guards who were guarding the door.

"Did you by chance come through this door that we were guarding?" asked one of the guards.

"No, I just got here," replied Mario, "Why?"

The guards looked at each other and then back at Mario.

"Well this may sound funny, but we were guarding the door as always when suddenly the door opened quickly and closed just as fast. I looked to see if someone was at the door, but no one was there."

Mario listened to what the guard said and thought about it.

"You said you didn't see anybody at the door?" asked Mario.

"Yes,"

"Did you feel anything when the door opened?"

The guards looked at each other.

"Come to think of it, we both did feel some strong wind when the door opened and closed quickly."

Mario's eyes grew big at the answer.

"Where does that door lead to?" asked Mario urgently.

"To the hallway upstairs," said the guard.

Mario quickly ran over to the door and opened it.

"If that happens to either of you again, tell me," ordered Mario, and he quickly shut the door before the guard could answer.

The guard looked at the other guard and shrugged. Whatever was going on wasn't their business.

Sonic dashed into one of the doors of the upper hallway and stopped. The room he was in was different from the other ones he was in; it had a balcony. Sonic walked over to the balcony and stood by its railing, looking up at the clear blue sky. The sun shone on many green hills that darted across the landscape; just like in Green Hill.

Sonic sighed. He was getting homesick; sick of running around and not being accepted, sick of not being to talk to a friend. Sonic would have given anything to meet Tails and the others again; even Knuckles who was always to serious to mess around with.

Sonic forgot about everything else and just stood there, watching the beautiful scenery. If there was one thing he wanted, Sonic wanted to be back home.

While enjoying the view, Sonic slowly pulled out one of the chaos emeralds he had found and looked at it. He had three chaos emeralds; he would need only four more to go back home.

Sighing heavily over his homesickness, Sonic put the emerald away and watched the sun shining on the grass covered green hills.

Some footsteps caught hold of Sonic's ears.

Sonic awoke from his daydreaming and turned around just in time to see a large fireball coming straight at him! Sonic ducked quick enough to avoid the fireball as it flew past him. Sonic got up quickly and went to go to the door but stopped himself from doing so.

At the closed door was none other than Mario himself.

Sonic stood where he was, staring his opponent in the eye. He was not in the best of moods, and he was getting annoyed by this little human that kept trying to kill him.

Mario stood in front of the door to make sure Sonic couldn't escape. He finally had him trapped, and Mario was not going to let him go away without a fight.

Sonic stared angrily at Mario. Why wouldn't this guy just leave him alone? What had he done anyway?

Mario stayed where he was and smiled at Sonic.

"As you can see, hedgehog, I have your only escape route blocked off. We are going to settle this whole thing right now."

Sonic anger grew at hearing this from Mario's mouth.

"There's nothing to settle!" Sonic said angrily, "I didn't do anything!"

"Don't you lie to me, hedgehog!" yelled Mario, his own temper rising, "Now tell me what you are planning to do!"

"All that I want to do is to get home!" yelled Sonic back, "Is there anything wrong for me to go back where I came from?"

"And when do you plan to go back?"

"When I am good and ready!"

Mario tensed at the hedgehog's sharpness of voice. The hedgehog must be ready to accomplish his plan, but Mario would not allow him to do that.

"Listen here, hedgehog," said Mario, "I have been following you everywhere in the Mushroom Kingdom and at each place, you have been growing stronger. I must stop you now before you destroy the entire kingdom!"

Sonic's anger suddenly dropped when he heard Mario say this.

"Why would I want to destroy the kingdom?"

"Because of the evil inside of you," said Mario and with that, Mario charged at Sonic.

Sonic was too busy thinking to notice Mario's charge.

"The evil inside me?" Sonic said to himself, "That can't be me. That has to be Me…"

Sonic didn't have time to say what he had to say for at that moment, Mario's fist rammed right into Sonic's face. Sonic fell back from the blow, but Mario came at him again with another punch in the face, sending Sonic farther back this time.

Sonic shook his head quickly and dodged Mario's other punches. Mario kept on sending punches at Sonic, hoping that it will keep Sonic's guard down. Sonic dodged another punch and gave Mario a nice kick in the stomach.

Mario backed away from Sonic, giving Sonic enough time to recover from his bruises.

"Hey, pal!" Sonic tried to say, "I am not who you are after!"

Mario, however, failed to hear Sonic, and putting on his winged cap, Mario flew around in the air and threw a multitude of fireballs at Sonic.

Sonic saw the fireballs coming and quickly outmaneuvered them.

"Looks like I have to knock this guy out if I'm going to put any sense into him," Sonic said to himself and quickly spun into a ball and launched himself at Mario.

Mario tried to dodge the attack, but Sonic was too quick for him. Sonic collided into Mario in midair, knocking Mario down to the ground.

Sonic landed smoothly on the ground and before Mario could get up and fight again, he quickly took Mario's winged cap off his head.

"Give that back!" shouted Mario angrily.

"Not until you listen to me," said Sonic, twirling the cap around on his finger.

Mario mumbled out something and immediately pulled out his Metal cap. As soon as he put it on, Mario's whole body turned into shiny hard metal.

Sonic stared in amazement. Guess there were things Sonic didn't know this human could do after all.

Sonic didn't have anytime to say anything because Mario charged at Sonic again. Sonic leaped over Mario, but then Mario quickly leaped up into the air and kicked Sonic hard with his metallic foot. Sonic came crashing to the ground, while Mario landed calmly beside him.

Mario went over to Sonic and picked him off the ground, ready to destroy him. The moment Sonic was lifted off the ground, however, Sonic quickly spun into a ball, dragging Mario along in the spin. With a dizzy Mario inside of Sonic's ball, Sonic bounced back and forth across the room, hitting the walls and ceiling with Mario. Finally, Sonic landed down on the floor with enough force that Mario flew away from him and crashed into one of the walls.

Sonic picked himself up and looked at Mario. Seeing how badly hurt Mario was, Sonic went over to Mario to help him out, but to his surprise, Mario jumped off the ground and attacked Sonic with a bunch of punches. Sonic easily dodged the punches and gave a punch at Mario, hitting him square in the face.

Too bad for Sonic, Mario's face was made of the hardest metal ever created.

"Ow!" Sonic said and wriggled his hand sore hand back and forth in pain.

Mario cracked a smile and punched Sonic directly in the face. Sonic went flying across the room and rammed into the wall.

Sonic struggled to get back up when he saw Mario charging him again, ready to destroy Sonic while he is down. With no options left, Sonic quickly pulled out his power ring.

The ring glowed brightly in Sonic's hand, and Sonic's body spun into the largest and hardest ball he had ever made. Mario stopped his charge and watched as Sonic spun faster and faster inside his ball. Once Sonic had enough speed and power from his ring, Sonic launched himself at Mario.

Mario, seeing the super ball Sonic was in, put his metallic hands up to stop Sonic's attack, but Sonic's ball was too strong for Mario to stop. Sonic's ball rammed into Mario's metallic body and sent him flying against the wall.

Sonic stopped spinning and quickly grabbed Mario's metal cap off his head. Immediately, Mario's body turned back to normal.

"Give up, little man," said Sonic, "It is useless to keep fighting each time we meet."

"Never!" said Mario and with that he give Sonic a good kick in the stomach.

Sonic fell back only a little, but that was all Mario needed. Mario quickly took out his vanishing cap and put it on his head. Mario's body immediately turned invisible.

Sonic stared in amazement again. Just how many hats did this guy have anyway?

Being invisible, Mario once again charged at Sonic and this time succeeded. Sonic fell down to the ground but quickly got up again and punched where he thought Mario was at.

Only to punch thin air.

Mario leaped over the confused hedgehog and gave Sonic a good kick in the back. Sonic fell down again and quickly got up again to defend himself. Since he couldn't see Mario, Sonic would have to depend on his ears to tell him where Mario is.

Sonic's ears heard Mario's footsteps behind him. Sonic quickly turned around and kept punching at the air, hoping to hit his invisible enemy. When he noticed he wasn't hitting anything but air, however, Sonic stopped his attack and went back on the defense.

Mario smiled at Sonic's effort.

"You have hit me a dozen times and have not even knocked me down to the ground," said Mario, "Too bad for you, my cap not only makes me invisible, but phasable too."

Sonic grew tensed. No wonder why he wasn't getting anywhere with his attacks! He couldn't hit him! And if he couldn't hit him, he wouldn't be able to take his cap off! Unless…

Sonic quickly dashed around and around the invisible Mario until he formed a small tornado around Mario. Mario tried to hold onto the ground, but the wind was too strong, and Mario flew up into the air. The wind blew Mario's vanishing cap off of Mario's head and immediately, Mario's body became visible once again. Mario fell down to the floor, and Sonic quickly took Mario's vanishing cap.

Seeing that Sonic had all three of his special caps, Mario put back on his red cap and lunged himself at Sonic. Sonic caught Mario in the air and threw him to the ground. Mario groaned loudly as he tried to get up again, but he was too weak and fell back down to the floor. Sonic landed in front of Mario; a serious look on his face told Mario that he had won.

"Go ahead, hedgehog! You have defeated me, and I am now to weak to stop you. Finish me!" cried Mario.

Sonic knelt down to Mario and grabbing his hand, he pulled Mario's body up off the ground.

"What are you doing?" asked a surprised Mario.

"Helping you to your feet," said Sonic.

With Sonic's support, Mario was able to stand up again.

"Why did you just help me if we are enemies?" asked Mario.

Sonic looked deep into Mario's blue eyes.

"Because I truly believe we are not really enemies."

A surprised look came upon Mario's face.

"What do you mean we are not enemies?" asked Mario.

"Because first of all, I didn't start whole enemy bit and second of all, I can tell that you are not a villain. I can tell by your eyes," answered Sonic.

Mario stared at Sonic's serious face.

"You are right about the second part," said Mario, "but you are not right about the first one. The princess had seen you in her vision, and in it, you have destroyed the entire Mushroom Kingdom. Then there is a painting in this castle that shows you destroying the kingdom. You are the villain!"

The memory of the stone picture in the pyramid came inside of Sonic's head.

"Did anyone actually tell you that I was a villain?" asked Sonic, hoping to solve the riddle.

"Yes, a scientist called Dr. Eggman told me that you were his adversary and even showed me a picture of you. That proves that you are the villain," said Mario.

Sonic's eyes grew big at hearing this.

"Eggman told you this?" asked Sonic.

Mario looked into Sonic's green eyes. When he realized how serious Sonic was, Mario answered, "Yes."

Before Sonic could say anything else to Mario, a large explosion shook the whole castle. Sonic and Mario both fell down to the ground, and when they got up again, they were surrounded by a dozen large robots. And floating above the robots in his _Eggmobile_ was Dr. Eggman himself with a grin on his face.

Mario was the first one to speak.

"Dr. Eggman! What are you doing here?" Mario asked confusingly.

Eggman gave a little laugh at Mario's question.

"Why I am just conquering this beautiful castle of yours. I hope you don't mind."

"What?" asked Mario.

Eggman again laughed at Mario's question.

"I see that our little warthog friend hasn't told you the truth yet," said Eggman.

Mario looked at Sonic then back at Dr, Eggman.

"What do you mean, Dr. Eggman?"

"You were easier to trick than I thought," said Eggman, "Even though I am well known for my deceitfulness, I never did think you would have fell for my lie so easily."

Mario stared up silently in disbelief at Eggman.

"You see, Mario," said Eggman, "Once Sonic and I got transported here to your world, I knew he would try to stop me from conquering it. That is why I lied to you, so you could keep him busy while I build my robot army and conquer your world. Thanks to you, Mario, I have now not only built my robot army, but I have also have fixed the _Egg Dentastrater_."

The _Egg Dentastrater_?" asked Sonic for the first time.

"Yes, Sonic. I have found it and rebuilt it, so now it is twice as powerful as before. And thanks to my little friend here, I now have the power source to power it up," said Eggman and saying that, Eggman pulled out the red chaos emerald.

"The chaos emerald!" said Sonic.

"Of course only one chaos emerald won't destroy an entire planet, but it won't be long before I have all seven chaos emeralds to power up the _Egg Dentastrater_, and with it I will build the _Eggman Empire_!"

Eggman put the emerald away and gave out a loud laugh of victory.

Mario turned and faced Sonic.

"Your name is Sonic?" asked Mario.

Sonic smiled.

"Yep, and I guess your name is Mario. If we weren't in a jam here, I would be laughing over your name." Sonic said and gave a little chuckle.

Mario gave Sonic a serious look, so Sonic quickly stopped chuckling and looked at Eggman.

"I now have no longer use of you, Mario, but I still do have some use of your princess here," said Eggman and pointed his finger at the door.

Mario turned around and saw one of Eggman's robots holding Princess Peach, who was in chains.

"Peach!" Mario yelled and with that, Mario leaped over the robots surrounding him and raced over to Peach. Sonic quickly followed him.

A large ball from behind suddenly rammed into both Sonic and Mario, knocking them both to the ground.

"Good job, Metal," said Eggman.

"Thank you, Dr, Eggman," said Metal Sonic who was standing in front of Sonic and Mario.

Mario put his head up and saw a metallic hedgehog standing right before him. It looked exactly like the hedgehog that he had seen in the painting.

"You!" Mario said and tried to get up, but Metal Sonic kicked him hard in the face and knocked him out cold. Mario fell back down to the ground.

"Metal, dispose of these two fools and make sure they don't try to stop me!" commanded Eggman.

"It will be my pleasure, Doctor," said Metal and saying that, he grabbed both Sonic and Mario and flew high up into the air until he was out of sight.

With both Sonic and Mario gone, Eggman went over to Princess Peach.

"Don't worry your highness. I won't dispose of you, yet!" said Eggman.

And with that, Eggman broke out into a victorious laugh.

Metal Sonic flew high across the Mushroom Kingdom with both Sonic and Mario in both of his hands. When he approached a large murky swamp, Metal Sonic threw both Sonic and Mario and watched them as they crashed into the swamp.

"So long, Sonic and Mario," Metal said and gave out a loud laugh of triumph.

Now that those two were disposed of, no one could stop Metal's plans now.


	9. Chapter 9: The Hero Alliance

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 9**

**The Hero Alliance**

"Hey, pal! Are you awake?"

Hearing the voice above him, Mario slowly opened up his eyes and saw a blue hedgehog standing over his still body. Mario tried to get up, but his hands slipped, and he fell back down onto the muddy ground.

The hedgehog took Mario's hand and carefully lifted him up from the muddy ground. Once on his feet, Mario's body wobbled a bit at trying to keep its balance, but soon enough, Mario was able to regain his balance and faced the blue hedgehog. A moment of brainstorming brought the hedgehog's name back to Mario's head.

"Thank you, Sonic," said Mario, "and I am sorry."

Sonic gave a puzzled look at Mario.

"What are you sorry for?" asked Sonic.

Mario wanted turn away from Sonic's eyes to escape his guilt, but Mario held his ground and told him anyway.

"For falsely accusing you and trying to do destroy you."

Mario expected a scolding back from Sonic; instead, Sonic gave a little smile.

"Yeah, well, it's not your fault you tried to kill me," Sonic said and gave a little chuckle.

Mario's face remained sober.

"This is serious," said Mario, "I almost succeeded in killing you!"

Sonic's smile remained on his face.

"I doubt that," said Sonic, "I am much tougher than I look. Many people tried to kill me over the years and yet, here I am in one piece."

Mario looked confusingly at Sonic.

"How can you be so carefree about this matter? I am trying to apologize to you, and you just make a joke about it."

"You don't need to apologize," said Sonic and walked slowly into the muddy swamp.

Mario, shocked by Sonic's carefree attitude, watched Sonic disappear into the swamp before he followed him. It didn't take Mario long to see Sonic laying on a tree branch right above a deep pit of mud.

Aware of Mario's presence, Sonic looked down at him and gave a small smile.

"What's up, Mario?"

"You, that's who, Sonic," replied Mario, "Now what do you mean that I don't have to apologize. Are you against apologies?"

Sonic's head turned away from Mario and back to watching the stormy sky above the swamp's canopy. Mario waited patiently for Sonic to answer, but when nothing happened, Mario jumped up onto the same tree branch that Sonic was lying on and stared down at Sonic's face.

"It is impolite to not answer someone's question.

Sonic just shrugged.

"Well, I'm not the type of guy who learned manners."

Mario's anger started to show in front of Sonic.

"I was polite enough to apologize for the deeds I did against you, so I demand a straight answer from you!"

Sonic's head swayed back and forth then finally stopped when he saw Mario.

"Could you move out of my way a bit," Sonic asked, "You are blocking my view."

Mario crossed his arms over his chest and stayed put to where he was.

"Not until you answer my question."

Seeing that Mario wasn't going to budge, Sonic closed his eyes and leaned against the tree.

That sparked Mario's temper.

"That does it!' yelled Mario and he threw a small fireball down onto the tree branch.

Sonic slowly opened his eyes.

"Um, Mario," Sonic said, "You might want to move towards me a bit."

Mario shook his head.

"I told you that I was not going to move till you answer my…"

A sharp cracking sound filled the swamp's air. Mario fell down onto the branch, where he saw the fireball he had thrown was burning the branch away.

Mario's end of the branch soon broke off of Sonic's end/

"Mama Mia!" yelled Mario and he fell down with the branch into the deep pit of mud at the bottom of the tree.

Mario tried to climb out of the mud pit, but the sticky mud stuck to Mario's clothing and dragged him deeper into the pit. Seeing the situation he was in, Mario tried desperately to climb out, but the more he moved, the quicker he sank into the deep mud pit.

Up on the branch, Sonic watched Mario's troubles and shrugged.

Seeing that he couldn't get out by himself, Mario looked up at Sonic.

"Help."

Sonic looked down at Mario.

"What did you say?"

"Help," repeated Mario who was already up to his neck in the mud pit.

At that moment, Sonic stood up on the tree branch and jumped down into the mud pit. Soon, he too started sinking.

Mario looked at him surprisingly.

"What are you doing?"

Sonic smiled at Mario.

"Trust me on this."

It was easier said than done. Mario's head slowly began to disappear into the oozing mud. Soon, Mario disappeared completely into the mud pit.

Suddenly, Sonic grabbed Mario's submerged hand and with ease pulled Mario's head to the surface.

Mario coughed the mud out of his mouth and looked at Sonic. Sonic's head was the only part of his body on the surface of the mud pit, but instead of fear, a smile marked Sonic's face.

"You ready?" Sonic asked.

Mario nodded his head.

"Here we go!" yelled Sonic.

Sonic's submerged legs started to spin around faster and faster. The mud pit stopped sucking at Sonic and Mario and immediately started to spin around in a circle. The mud swirled faster, but Sonic did not stop spinning his legs. Instead, Sonic increased the speed of his legs.

Suddenly the whole mud pit erupted into the air, sending both Sonic and Mario flying through the swamp's canopy.

Mario instinctively watched Sonic and copied his every move. Both heroes grabbed on to some vines and started swinging through the canopy. Then they landed on a large mangrove tree that rested above a large pool of water. Once they landed, both Sonic and Mario surfed across the giant branches, picking up amazing speed as they continued on their journey.

When they reached the end of the tree, Sonic and Mario jumped into the air and grabbed onto some more vines and landed onto the muddy swamp ground.

Mario panted for air while Sonic shook the caked mud off his body. Once they were clean from the mud, the two heroes looked at each other in the face.

"Why did you do that?" asked Mario.

"Do what?"

"Escaping the mud pit like that, swinging on vines through the swamp and dragging me along with you?"

Sonic shrugged.

"I don't know, but I thought it was a lot of fun. Didn't you think it was a lot of fun?"

"Well, yes," said Mario, "But why couldn't we just have climbed out of the mud instead of soaring throughout the whole swamp?"

"What fun is there in just climbing out of a mud pit?" asked Sonic.

"It is the proper way to get out of a mud pit," pointed out Mario.

"Proper, but not fun," replied Sonic.

"What is it with you and fun?" asked Mario confusingly.

Sonic shrugged.

"If you are a guy like me, you would try to turn anything into a game. It makes the hard times go by quicker."

Mario kept silent.

"It something I learned back at my world. Never pass up the opportunity to turn something bad into something enjoyable," said Sonic.

Sonic waited for Mario to say something back to him. Mario said nothing.

"The problem with you is that you do not enjoy your gifts. Sure, I guess it is your duty to guard your princess, but that doesn't mean you should take it too seriously."

Mario just nodded in agreement.

"As for the apology, you already apologized to me before."

Mario looked confusingly at Sonic.

"What do you mean?"

"Back at the castle, when you realized the truth that I was a friend and called me by my real name, I accepted your apology."

Mario looked down at the ground and shook his head.

"How do you do it, Sonic?" Mario asked.

Sonic shrugged.

"Must be my carefree attitude."

Mario looked up in agreement.

"I'd say!" said Mario, "The way you do things, I doubt you take anything seriously!"

"Only the things that are really serious!" agreed Sonic with a smile.

For the first time since they had been together, Mario gave a nice smile back.

"Okay, then, but I still have a question. I have been fooled by Dr. Eggman into thinking you have been the enemy, and I am wondering, since whenever we met we fought, how you got here and what you are you going to do about here?" said Mario.

"It's a long story," replied Sonic.

"Please, I need to know the truth!"

Sonic thought it over and then shook his head.

"You better get yourself comfortable, because this is going to take a while."

Metal Sonic landed softly on the swampy ground and looked around. Ever since he had thrown both heroes into the swamp, Metal had occupied himself to search for their dead bodies. He couldn't get anywhere in the sky, so Metal landed on the ground to continue his search.

Metal didn't have to go far before he saw two sets of footprints in the mud.

Metal bent down to the ground and studied the footprints. He could tell from the outline of the prints that whoever bore them wore shoes.

And no animal in the swamp wore shoes.

"They're alive," said Metal.

A thunder clap broke the stormy sky. Raindrops began to fall down onto the earth, washing away the footprints while watering the damp earth.

Not wanting to lose his only clue to the whereabouts of the two heroes, Metal dashed through the swamp, following the footprints to wherever it may lead him.

"And now, here we are, talking like friends," said Sonic who had just finished telling his story to Mario.

Mario thought over Sonic's story and looked into his eyes. Mario was tricked before, and he did not want to be tricked again.

"What do you intend to do?" asked Mario.

"Get both Eggman and I back to our world before he conquers yours," replied Sonic.

"And how are you going to do that?"

"With these," Sonic said and pulled out the three chaos emeralds he had.

"What is so important about those gems?" asked Mario.

"These gems are called chaos emeralds. Every chaos emerald has mystical power that can be used for good or for evil. If one collects all seven chaos emeralds, chaos control will happen."

Sonic put the chaos emeralds away and looked up at the stormy sky.

"It was chaos control that brought me here, and it will send me back."

Mario said nothing. He had witnessed some of the power of the chaos emeralds, but he had no idea how much power was inside all seven of them. For that reason Mario kept his chaos emerald in his pocket and didn't tell Sonic about it. It wasn't that he didn't trust him; Mario just didn't want the emerald to fall into the wrong hands.

"Now what?" asked Mario.

"We have to go back and stop Eggman."

Mario nodded in agreement.

"Do you know where we are?" asked Sonic.

Mario shook his head.

"No, but if we find a large green pipe, we could probably make our way back into the castle undetected."

"Okay, but how do we find one of these pipes?"

"Those pipes can be found anywhere in the Mushroom Kingdom, but they are most common in buildings and caves, so I suggest we find a cave."

"Right," Sonic agreed and immediately dashed away into the swamp.

"Hey, wait!" Mario yelled but it was no use. Sonic had already disappeared into the swamp. Mario was alone.

"He sure doesn't stay around long enough to change his mind," Mario grumbled and made his ways through the swamp.

Mario walked along the swamp trial when a thunderbolt broke the silence of the swamp. At that moment, raindrops fell down from the sky and started to wash away the trial Mario was on.

Mario quickened his pace to keep track of the trial when he suddenly tripped over a tree root. Mario fell down to the ground; right on top of a hard object.

"Ouch!"

Mario quickly rolled off the object and stood up on his feet. Mario looked down at the object he had landed on.

The object was covered in caked mud, but a small green glow could be seen coming from the object. Mario picked it up and brushed the caked mud off it. The green light shone brighter into Mario's eyes as he held the green chaos emerald in his hand.  
Mario looked at the green emerald in his hand. This was the second emerald that he had found, and if Sonic had three and Eggman had one, then that equaled six emeralds.

"Six emeralds," Mario said aloud.

A sudden rustling in the bushes took Mario's attention from the emerald. Mario looked around him, looking for the source of the noise. When nothing appeared, Mario went to put the emerald in his pocket.

Only it wasn't in his hand anymore.

Mario looked around for the emerald, but it was no where in sight.

"_Plop_!"

A large coconut fell on top of Mario's head. Mario fell back a little from the impact, rubbing the sore part of his head. Mario looked up just in time to see a monkey drop another coconut right at him.

Mario quickly dodged the coconut and looked angrily at the monkey.

Only to see the chaos emerald in its hand!

"Thief!" yelled Mario and he quickly jumped onto one of the tree branches to get his emerald back. The monkey climbed higher up into the tree, with Mario right behind him.

Finally, the monkey went out on a small branch at the top of the tree. There were no other branches in sight.

Mario blocked the monkey's only escape route.

"Now give me back my emerald."

The monkey shook its head.

"Give."

The monkey moved further towards the end of the branch.

"Now!"

Suddenly, a second monkey came out of the leaves and grabbed Mario's hat. Surprised, Mario lost his balance on the branch and fell off. The monkeys watched in interest as Mario quickly grabbed a vine and swung himself to another branch.

Once he regained his balance, Mario looked angrily up at the two monkeys, one with his emerald, and the other with his hat.

"Give me back my hat and emerald!"

The two monkeys screeched at Mario and threw the emerald and hat to each other.

Mario tapped his foot lightly.

"No, give them to me!"

The one monkey looked at the other and nodded its head. The monkey then grabbed a large coconut and threw it at Mario.

Mario caught the coconut and threw to the ground, but then another coconut crashed into his face, almost sending him off the limb.

Mario regained his balance and glared up at the laughing monkeys.

"That does it!"

Mario positioned himself in between both monkeys. Then, Mario sent a fireball from both of his hands at the branches the monkeys were on.

The branches quickly burned away, and the laughing monkeys, who finally stopped laughing, fell out of the tree. As the monkeys fell right beside him, Mario grabbed both the chaos emerald and his hat from the monkey's hands and watched as they continued their journey down to the ground.

Fortunately for the monkeys, they were able to grab on to some vines and landed safely on the branches of another tree. They quickly swung away out of sight.

Mario jumped off the tree and landed on the ground. Mario dusted off his hat and put it on his head.

"Nobody takes my hat," Mario said and put the emerald in his pocket and continued on the swamp trail.

Metal Sonic came to a stop when the footprints disappeared under the pressure of the rain. He had lost the trail, but he wasn't discouraged. He knew they were alive, and it would be a matter of time before he met them again.

Metal took out his communicator and turned it on. Eggman's face appeared on the communicator's screen.

"What is it, Metal?"

"Sonic and Mario are still alive, but the rain washed away their footprints, and I am unable to follow them."

Eggman was not pleased with the news.

"Why you good for nothing scrap of metal!" Eggman screamed, "You were supposed to stop them from coming back!"

"I didn't say that they are back yet!" scowled Metal, "I intend to stop them myself, but first I need one of your robots."

Eggman thought it over and then nodded his head.

"Which one of my beauties do you have in mind?"

Metal knew which one he wanted.

"_Eggbomber_."

The swamp grew denser as Sonic made his way through it at alarming speed. He had been searching for hours, and he still did not find any pipe anywhere.

Sonic quickly stopped in his tracks. Right in front of him was the entrance to a large cave. If Mario was correct, some pipes should be in there, and the pipes will lead him back to the castle.

"I better find Mario and tell him I found this cave," Sonic said and prepared to dash away.

Suddenly a large bomb dropped in front of Sonic and erupted. Green gas came out from the bomb and intoxicated the swamp air. It was sleeping gas.

Sonic tried to cover his nose from the toxic gas, but it was useless. He was in the middle of the gas cloud and was receiving the most gas into his body. Sonic fell down to his knees and dropped to the ground.

Mario cautiously made his through the dense jungle like growth of the swamp. The rain had washed away the rest of the trail, so Mario was on his own.

The vegetation cleared a bit when a green gas appeared out of nowhere and floated above Mario's head. Mario took one sniff of it and coughed.

"Sleeping gas," Mario said.

Mario quickly grabbed his metal cap and put on his head. His body instantly turned to metal. The green gas increased in volume, but thanks to the metal cap, Mario couldn't breath it in.

Mario quickened his pace through the jungle growth till he came to the clearing. The green gas formed a thick fog over the clearing, so Mario walked carefully into the clearing.

Soon enough, Mario tripped over something. Mario stood back up and looked at what he tripped over.

It was Sonic.

'Sonic?"

Mario bent down and examined Sonic. He was still breathing, but the gas had made him unconscious. There was nothing Mario could do for him.

A loud engine filled the gas soaked air. Mario turned around and saw an egg shaped robot land right behind him.

"Halt! In the name of the glorious Eggman!"

"Glorious indeed!" said Mario in a sarcastic tone.

"Enemy within target range! Fire!"

The robot let out a large flame of fire from its gun. Mario easily caught it in the air and threw it back at the robot. The flame just glanced off of the robot's armor.

"Changing weapon sequence! Laser Guns!"

The robot began shooting out laser bolts at Mario. Mario held up his hand and blocked the laser bolts with his metallic hand.

"Is that the best you can do!"

"Launch missiles!"

The missiles launched out of the robot and flew straight at Mario. Mario quickly dodged each of the missiles and ran up to the robot.

The robot continued to fire laser beams and missiles, but easily sidestepped them. Once he reached the robot, Mario jumped into the air and spun around into a small spinning top.

"Spin jump!"

Mario crashed through the robots armor. The robot began to glow red.

"Self destruct in 30 seconds!"

Mario landed on the ground, grabbed Sonic and ran away from the broken robot. Mario had just made it out of the fog when the robot self destruct. Metal fragments flew everywhere, and the gas quickly cleared up. The swamp was once again quiet.

Mario put Sonic gently onto the ground and took off his metal cap. Mario's body returned to normal.

Mario turned behind him and found himself looking into the entrance to a large cave.

Mario looked down at Sonic and smiled.

"No wonder why you were here."

Being out of the sleeping gas, Sonic's body stirred as Sonic woke up from his sleep. Seeing Mario next to him, Sonic gave a weak smile.

"I see you made it!"

Mario nodded.

'Just barely."

Sonic gave a little chuckle and stood up on his feet.

"I was going to go find you again when one of Eggman's robots dropped that gas bomb on me," Sonic said and looked around, "Speaking of robot, where is it?"

"I took care of him for you," Mario said with a smile on his own face.

Sonic gave a return smile.

"Guess you are tougher than you look."

"Same as you," agreed Mario.

Sonic nodded and looked into the entrance of the cave.

"Do you think there is a pipe in there?" asked Sonic.

Mario nodded.

"I believe there is."

"Then what are we waiting for," Sonic said and prepared to dash.

Mario quickly grabbed hold of Sonic's arm.

"How about we stick together this time," Mario suggested.

Sonic shrugged.

"Works for me!"

And with that, the two heroes walked slowly into the entrance of the cave.

Metal Sonic looked down at the remains of _Eggbomber_. Apparently, the robot was no match for the heroes but that didn't matter. It was just a test to see how good his opponents really were.

Metal gave a small grin and walked into the cave.


	10. Chapter 10: Clash in the Cavern

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 10**

**Clash in the Cavern**

Sonic and Mario walked at a slow pace inside of the cave. The storm outside of the cave increased its rage upon the muddy earth, but the cave's ceiling protected the two wandering heroes from the hard rainfall. Even if they were still out in it, neither of the heroes would have minded the raging storm. They had too much important stuff on both of their minds.

Neither Sonic nor Mario had said anything to each other when they entered the cave, but the cave itself wasn't quiet. Both Sonic and Mario could hear the little drops of water dropping to the cave's floor, and the thunder from the storm echoed inside the cave. An occasional screech from some unidentified creature could be heard further inside of the cave, but Sonic and Mario still kept their even slow pace.

As the heroes ventured farther inside the vast cavern, the thunder from the storm outside decreased and was replaced by the dripping of water drops on the cave floor. But neither of the heroes noticed the decrease of the thunderstorm; instead they noticed something else.

The light from the cave's entrance, their only source of light, was decreasing rapidly. A moment later, the two heroes stopped when the last patch of light coming from the cave's entrance disappeared, leaving both Sonic and Mario inside a very dark cavern.

Sonic and Mario stood by each other, but neither of them said a word. They were too busy thinking out a solution to their light problem.

A moment later, Mario tried to look at Sonic in the creeping darkness. Even though Sonic couldn't see Mario's face, he knew from the way Mario was shifting around in the darkness that he had an idea.

"I have an idea!" said an excited Mario to Sonic.

"Fire away!" approved Sonic.

Mario pushed Sonic back gently behind him.

"Stand back!" ordered Mario.

Sonic just shrugged and tried to watch Mario's "idea" in the darkness of the cave.

Remembering what he had done back in the sewer, Mario quickly formed a fireball in his right hand. The fireball let out enough light for Mario to see Sonic's surprised face.

"So, what do you think?" asked Mario.

In the light of his small flame, Mario saw Sonic give him a thumbs up.

"That is a pretty cool idea!"

Mario smiled back at Sonic and led their way further into the cave. Even with the help with his little flame, however, Mario could only see what was only a couple of feet ahead of him, and Sonic could only see Mario's flame. They both stopped and looked at each other: they needed more light.

"I have an idea," Mario said to Sonic and took a step forward to keep out of Sonic's way. Once he was a safe distance away from Sonic, Mario quickly increased the height of his flame till it was towering over his head.

"Eureka!" yelled Mario.

Sonic was watching Mario play with his flame when some noise caught his ears. It was a screeching noise that was coming from the cave's ceiling.

Sonic slowly looked up at the ceiling, and to his horror, he saw thousands of giant vampire bats with their wings folded across their heads. The sight of Mario's flame slowly woke them up.

Sonic looked quickly at Mario who was still increasing the height of his flame.

"Mario!"

Sonic's voice echoed loudly inside the cave, startling a surprised Mario from his work. At that moment, Mario's flame, which was now being unattended, flashed higher until it reached the cave's ceiling. Unfortunately for Mario and Sonic, Mario's flame fully woke the vampire bats out of their sleep and, seeing Mario's flame coming straight at them, they panicked.

Sonic quickly pushed Mario to the ground as thousands of frightened bats swarmed through the cave towards the exit. Once they found it, the bats flew out of the cave and into the stormy sky. The cave was once again quiet and dark.

After the bats had left, Sonic and Mario got up and stared at each other.

"At least it was a good idea at the time," Mario said to a grumpy Sonic.

Sonic remained quiet. Once again they were without a source of light.

"Let's not try to use the flame unless we need it," Sonic finally said.

Mario nodded.

"I am out of ideas. Do you have any?"

Sonic thought for a moment and then quickly took out Tail's emerald tracker and turned on the light. A small beam of light flashed its way inside the cavern, giving off enough light for both Sonic and Mario to see the path ahead of them.

Now it was Mario's turn to be grumpy.

"Why didn't you suggest that before?"

Sonic shrugged.

"I thought you had a better idea," Sonic replied with a smirk across his face and lead their way further into the cavern.

They didn't go far when they saw their path split into two paths that led to two entrances. Sonic stopped and looked at Mario.

"Which way do we take?"

Mario pulled off his cap and swung it around on his finger.

"Which ever way you like," was all that Mario said.

Sonic turned back to the two different paths in their way. The right path looked longer and smoother than the left path and would probably lead them to a green pipe.

"Let's take the right path," Sonic suggested and walked over the right path's entrance.

Mario watched as Sonic disappeared into the right path's entrance, and then, putting his cap back on his head, he followed Sonic's light. Mario did not know his way inside of the cave, and he had no intention to lose his only ally inside a vast cavern. If Sonic was right, the path should lead them to another pipe, which would lead Mario back to his familiar dwelling: the sewer.

Just as Sonic and Mario entered the right path's entrance, Metal Sonic approached the two paths and stopped. At the entrance to the second path, Sonic's light was quickly fading off as the two heroes moved farther into the unknown cave, leaving Metal Sonic standing by the two paths in the dark.

The darkness didn't bother Metal Sonic. He had no need for a light; his eyes were made to see clearly in the dark. In fact, Metal was actually quite comfortable in the dark; it gave him a sense of mysterious power that only he could control.

With the two heroes out of sight, Metal studied the two different paths directly in front of him. He recognized both of these paths before, and he knew where each of them went. Fortunately for him, the path that Sonic and Mario took was the long path that would lead them to a dead end. The left path, on the other hand, was a shortcut to the same location the heroes were going at.

His decision made, Metal fired up his engines and zoomed into the left path's entrance.

The light from Tail's emerald tracker rested on the stone blockade in front of the two heroes. Sonic and Mario stopped in their tracks and looked around with their light. They were standing on a small stony passage that rested above a large chasm below them, and in front of them was a dead end.

"Look's like we have to go back," said Sonic.

Mario didn't reply. He knew they were running out of time. They couldn't take anymore sidetracks; they had to get to the sewers as quickly as possible.

Just then Mario looked up and saw a ledge on top of the stone barrier.

"Sonic, look!"

Sonic looked at what Mario was pointing to and shined his light on the ledge. The ledge was about twenty feet above their heads and there were no footholds on the stone barrier to climb up to the edge.

Sonic gave a low whistle.

"How are we going to get up there?" asked Sonic.

"Don't worry about that, Sonic. You have more important things to worry about," said a dark voice.

Hearing the voice, Sonic shined his light farther up the ledge till it rested on the shiny metal plating of Metal Sonic.

Metal Sonic looked down at the two trapped heroes, an evil grin marked across his face. He blocked their only exit, and he enjoyed having the power over their lives.

Both Sonic and Mario recognized Metal Sonic's appearance.

"Metal!" Sonic yelled, "How did you find us?"

"That is for me to know and for you to find out," replied Metal.

Mario stepped in front of Sonic and looked up to Metal Sonic. The darkness that surrounded Metal Sonic brought the memory of the painting inside of Peach's castle back into Mario's head.

"You are the one who are responsible for getting us into this mess, aren't you?"

Metal shrugged off Mario's question.

"I have more important things to do than to argue with a short gullible plumber."

Mario grew angry at Metal's insult, but before he could say anything back at him, Mario saw Metal grab a device and throw it down towards them. Sonic recognized what Metal had thrown.

"Mario, watch out!"

The device quickly exploded, causing a small earthquake inside of the cave. The stone passage that was holding the weight of Sonic and Mario was quickly blown away.

Acting on instinct, Mario quickly jumped as high as he could and grabbed hold of the ledge that Metal Sonic was standing on. Sonic for once was too slow to react and found himself tumbling with the stone rumble down into the dark chasm that lay below him.

"Sonic!" Mario yelled, but it was too late. Sonic disappeared quickly into the darkness that surrounded the dark pit.

While looking down at his lost comrade, Mario suddenly heard some laughing. Mario pulled himself up the ledge and was barely able to see Metal Sonic laughing at the demise of Sonic. A sudden surge of anger entered into Mario's body.

"You!" Mario yelled and he charged directly at Metal Sonic.

Metal Sonic easily sidestepped Mario's charge and tripped Mario, causing him to crash to the floor.

"Sorry, but I have more important things to do than to fight a wimp like you," Metal said darkly and with a grin on his face, he dashed farther into the cave, leaving Mario once again by himself.

Mario slowly stood up and walked over to the chasm and looked down into it. He had no idea how deep it was or what lay down at the bottom of it, but one thing Mario did know was that he had just lost not only an ally but also a friend to his own actions. Instead of saving both Sonic and himself, Mario had only jumped for his own life and left Sonic to meet his terrible end.

And if that could happen to Sonic, then it could happen to Princess Peach too.

Mario stayed at the chasm for a long time, but he knew that in the end, he wasn't going to get anywhere by staying there mourning over the loss of his friend. If he was going to save Peach and the kingdom, Mario would have to find his way out of this dark cave and find a way back to Peach's castle.

And he would have to do it alone.

Seeing there was nothing else he could do, Mario quickly formed a small flame in his hand and ran farther into the cave. Sonic didn't die for nothing, and Mario was going to see to that: once he saved Peach and the kingdom he was going to take his vengeance out on Metal Sonic.

Lying on a hard stone pile, Sonic slowly began to open his eyes. He could have sworn he had fallen at least a mile deeper into the cave, but none of that mattered to him. Even with his sore body, Sonic quickly jumped off the stone pile and looked around at his surroundings.

Even though he was deeper down in the cave then he was before, Sonic noticed that the cave wasn't dark for a reason: small pools of molten lava bubbled along the path that Sonic was standing on. The lava pools were giving off enough light to show some dangerous looking stalactites hang above the perilous path that marked Sonic's way which was, unfortunately, the only path that could be seen anywhere.

"Well, at least there are no bats down here in this lava pit," Sonic said sarcastically.

"_BEEP_!"

Sonic looked down at his feet and saw Tail's emerald tracker beeping. It had picked up another chaos emerald.

Sonic picked up the tracker and studied it. He was quite used to reading the tracker now and could easily tell that the emerald was somewhere along the treacherous path.

"Look's like being sent down here wasn't too bad after all," Sonic said excitedly. If he found this emerald, that would leave only three more emeralds to find.

And only three emeralds away from getting home.

Without the slightest bit of caution, Sonic dashed along the path, only looking from the tracker's screen when he needed to jump over a pool of lava or dodge a falling stalactite.

Mario's flame flickered against the large gust of wind that was coming from the wind tunnel directly in front of Mario's path. Mario had stopped in front of the wind tunnel and looked inside of it. Large stones and stalactites were being blown up and down above a large pool of red hot lava where the wind was the strongest. The lava stretched for at least a mile inside the cave and on the opposite side of the lava laid the only entrance outside of Mario's path.

Mario blew out his small flame; he had no need for it now thanks to the light coming from the lava. With extreme caution, Mario walked inside the wind tunnel and looked down at the lava. Even though he was at least a hundred feet above the lava, Mario could still feel the heat wave being generated by the molten rock and stepped back from the ledge.

Mario knew that his only option was to cross the lava, but he wasn't prepared for the challenge of accomplishing his task. The heat wave coming from the lava created the wind tunnel that could carry large boulders across the lava pool, but Mario was unsure if the wind would be able to hold him high enough away from the heat of the lava below.

"This is going to be harder than I thought."

Then his memory came back. Mario could see Peach, bound in chains, being held captive by his so called "ally" while his robots made chaos through the entire kingdom. He could see Sonic, his enemy turned friend, screaming as he fell to his doom. Why? Because Mario had hesitated. It was Mario's fault that he gave the kingdom into the wrong hands, and it was up to him to regain peace throughout the Mushroom Kingdom.

And that meant passing the obstacle that lay ahead of him.

Having made up his mind, Mario backed further away from the ledge, and then he ran full force to toward the ledge.

"This is for you, Sonic!" Mario yelled as he jumped off the ledge.

At that same moment, a big heat wave coming from the lava created a large gust of wind that caught Mario in thin air. Mario stopped falling and floated a dozen feet above the lava. He was sweating anxiously from the heat of the lava, but other than that, he was okay.

Mario slowly spread his arms out and made a small stroke in the hot air. The wind, undisturbed by the slow movement, still held Mario the same height as it did before.

Feeling a sense of confidence, Mario slowly continued his stroking above the molten rock. A small explosion came somewhere further out in the lava river, but Mario knew that as long as he made slow movements, the wind would support his weight and keep him in the air.

As Mario made his way across the lava river, he heard more of the explosions coming closer towards him. Scrintching his eyes in the hot air, Mario could see some large lava bombs coming straight at him.

Even with the danger, Mario did not make any sudden movements. Mario slowly veered over to his right, just as the flaming lava bombs rushed by him and fell into the lava. A large wave of lava formed from the bombs and crashed into a stone barrier that was only inches away from Mario's cap. Still Mario relaxed and "swam" with the wind current till he finally reached the other side.

Once Mario was above solid ground, the heat wave dropped and Mario crashed to the ground.

Getting up from the rocky ground, Mario carefully looked behind his back and was surprised to see that he was only inches away from the ledge. Mario had never thought what he would have done if the heat wave carrying him would have dropped; one second late could have sent Mario tumbling into the lava pit.

Mario gave a nervous chuckle.

"I guess Sonic would have called me lucky."

"Sonic… screaming…falling…to his death…because of your hesitance…"

Mario quickly shook his head from the thought. He had more important things to do than to pity himself for losing a friend. If he was going to get back to Peach's castle, he would need to find a green pipe that would lead him to the sewer.

Mario turned and went into the passage that lay in front of him. The light from the lava was not enough for Mario to see far, but Mario did not dare create another flame for above his head he could see thousands of vampire bats sleeping lightly on the cave's ceiling.

And Mario did not want to give them their wake up call again.

Thousands of feet of stone beneath Mario's feet was Sonic who had stopped in front of a dead end. Tail's emerald tracker was beeping franticly in Sonic's hand now, signaling that the chaos emerald was very near.

Sonic looked around for the emerald, but it was nowhere in sight. That didn't mean it wasn't close!

Sonic looked back at the dead end in front of him. The barrier was made up of the hardest stone found in any stone quarry found in the Mushroom Kingdom and unless you had a powerful drill, you could not get past the wall.

Of course Sonic didn't have a drill, but he didn't need one anyway. Sonic put away the emerald tracker and took out his power ring. The ring glowed brightly inside of Sonic's hand and soon Sonic was covered in pure energy coming from the ring.

With the ring still in his hand, Sonic quickly spun into a powerful ball and spindashed into the stone barrier. The rock and rumble crumbled apart from Sonic's spindash and allowed Sonic to go deeper into the barrier. At remarkable speed, Sonic's ball finally burst through the other side of the barrier and landed on the ground.

Sonic uncurled himself from the ball and saw a white glowing gem glowing a couple of feet in front of him.

It was the white chaos emerald.

"At last" Sonic said. With this chaos emerald, Sonic would now have four chaos emeralds, leaving only three more to find.

Sonic slowly approached the emerald, but before he could grab it the ground beneath him began to shake violently. Sensing danger, Sonic quickly leapt away just as a large robot emerged from the ground in front of him. The robot had two drills on both sides of its body and one green eye in the middle of its body. Along the body were printed the words "_Egg Drill_."

The robot went over to the emerald and sucked the emerald right inside its mechanical body.

"Hey!" Sonic yelled when he saw the robot steal his emerald.

The robot ignored Sonic's remark.

"Chaos Emerald found. _Egg Drill_'s mission complete. _Egg Drill _must report back to Dr. Eggman," said the robot in a mechanical voice.

The two drills on the robot spun rapidly as the robot quickly burrowed inside the ceiling of the cave, causing some stalactites to fall down at Sonic.

Sonic quickly dodged the stalactites and looked at the hole the robot has made in the ceiling. The robot and the emerald were both gone.

"Great! Now I have to go on a wild goose chase to get my emerald back. Oh well, I guess I can't expect a free easy emerald nowadays," the grumpy hedgehog said.

With the power ring still in his hand from burrowing through the barrier, Sonic spun into a ball and jumped into the hole the robot has created. Sonic burrowed deeper through the ceiling till he finally popped out of the ground.

Uncurling from his ball, Sonic looked for the robot, but all that he saw were stalactites hanging from another ceiling inside the cavern.

"Perhaps I took the wrong turn?" questioned Sonic.

A laser beam suddenly appeared and struck Sonic in the back. Sonic tumbled along the ground, but quickly got up and leapt into the air as another laser beam shot past him.

Sonic quickly got into a defensive position, but he couldn't see his attacker anywhere. Then, out of the shadows appeared the robot, preparing to fire another laser beam at Sonic.

Sonic dodged the laser beam and leapt at the robot when it quickly disappeared into the shadow. Surprised, Sonic dropped down to the ground and searched for the robot.

Sonic had to leap again when the robot tried to shoot him with another laser beam from his left.

Mario quietly made his way through the tunnel passage when a green pipe suddenly appeared in his path. Surprised but pleased, Mario went toward the pipe when the ground suddenly started rumbling beneath him.

Mario quickly placed his hand along the wall to keep from falling. The rumbling continued for a while longer, and then it stopped.

Not wanting to find out what caused the rumbling, Mario quickly dived head first into the green pipe and out of the dark cavern.

The robot disappeared again from Sonic's view. Sonic backed off his midair attack and stood quietly on the ground.

After battling this robot for the last couple of minutes, Sonic had finally realized that the robot could camouflage itself with its surroundings and would attack its enemy from behind. When the robot changed color, Sonic's eyes were worthless.

Sonic's ears, on the other hand, were his secret weapon.

A slight rustle of metal scraping stone were caught by Sonic's ears and signaled into his brain. The robot was behind him!

Out of pure instinct, Sonic did a quick back flip behind the robot and kicked it hard in the air. The robot, damaged by Sonic's kick, crashed into the ground, causing the whole cave to rumble. The robot has served its purpose and was defeated.

Sonic landed on the ground and headed to the damaged machine. Amongst the flames coming from the dying robot was the white chaos emerald, glowing as brightly as it did before.

Sonic grabbed the chaos emerald and did not even bother to look at it. Instead, his eyes rested on the remains of the robot that was quickly being smothered by its flames.

"Eggman must be looking for the emeralds," Sonic said under his breath.

Sonic's eyes rested back on his chaos emerald. Dr. Eggman had always tried to use the emeralds to power up his machines, but why would Eggman send one of his robots inside the middle of a cave to find a chaos emerald? It's not like he could create a doomsday device in one day!

Then the realization closed into Sonic's mind.

"Eggman must have found the _Egg Dentastrater_!"

It was the only logical answer to Sonic's question. Why else would Eggman be so desperate to find the chaos emeralds?

Sonic put the white chaos emerald away with his other emeralds. At least he had four of them.

Sonic quickly dashed past the destroyed robot and came to a green pipe inside the ground. Not wasting a second, Sonic quickly jumped inside of the green pipe, hoping that he would find the other chaos emeralds before Eggman did.

Unknown to Sonic as he went down the pipe, Metal Sonic appeared out of the shadows. An evil grin crossed his face as he held the red emerald in his hands. Sonic and Mario had no idea of the plan HE had created.

The fun was just beginning!


	11. Chapter 11: Facing One's Fears

_**Sonic & Mario**_

**Chapter 11**

**Facing One's Fears**

The light from the torches lit up the sewer as Mario came sliding headfirst out of one of the green pipes in the ceiling and onto the cold hard floor. Uninjured from his ride, Mario quickly got up and went to the nearest green pipe in the ceiling and started to climb up the pipe. In a few seconds Mario was jumping out of the pipe and, without even taking a glimpse of his surroundings, climbed up into the next pipe that was hanging from the ceiling.

Despite going at a fast pace, Mario couldn't help but wonder if he was going his fastest. Yes, he was now in the sewer, but now he had to find the right pipe that would lead to Peach's castle. There were thousands of pipes in the sewer and only two of them would lead Mario to Peach's castle. The sooner Mario found one of those pipes, the sooner he would be able to find Eggman. And the sooner he found Eggman, the sooner he would be able to save Peach.

Peach.

Yes, that was why he was climbing as quickly as he could up those large green pipes: to save Peach and rid the Mushroom Kingdom from another villain. But yet, at the same time, Mario knew there was another reason; a reason that made his anger swell inside of his head.

While squeezing his way through the tight places inside of the pipe he was climbing out of, Mario saw a brighter light than the light that came from the torches below. Curiously, Mario quickly jumped out of his pipe and finally stopped. Though he was still in the sewer (the pipes made that obvious), the torches were replaced with big lanterns that hung along the ceiling above his head. It was a sign Mario welcomed: he was getting closer to the surface of the Mushroom Kingdom.

And closer to finding one of the pipes to Peach's castle.

Satisfied with his discovery, Mario quickly jumped into one of the pipes hanging above his head and started his climb to the surface.

Unknown to Mario's knowledge, Sonic slid out of his pipe and landed in a small puddle of water. Sonic quickly jumped out of the puddle and shook his feet dry. Even though he could face traveling across the ocean's floor and still keep his head, Sonic would rather avoid contact with any body of water, including a water puddle.

Sonic had finally dried his feet perfectly dry when he finally noticed that he was back in the sewer, just the place he wanted to be in. Unfortunately for Sonic, he had to get the worst part of the sewer system.

The pipe Sonic had come out of was the only pipe visible in his part of the sewer. The torches were starting to flicker by a small wind current that made Sonic's spines shiver. And the worse part of all was the roaring of a small waterfall that was right in front of him that emptied into a large pool of water below Sonic's feet.

"Look's like I have my share of unfortunate events," Sonic said surlily, and walked behind him, looking for any other pipes that were on Sonic's level of the sewer system.

While Sonic made his way thru the sewer, Metal Sonic plopped out of the pipe and landed in the same puddle Sonic had landed in before. Unlike his living counterpart, Metal was not scared of water; in fact it gave him a thought of even more power knowing that he was not scared of the same thing his opponent was afraid of. The thought of power alone sparked electricity inside of his metallic head.

Metal took one look around the sewer and smiled approvingly. This would do.

Metal Sonic took out his communicator and turned it on. After a slight fuzz on the screen, Dr. Eggman's face appeared on the screen.

"What is it, Metal?"

"I was capable of separating Sonic and Mario inside the cavern. Both of them are now in the sewer."

Dr. Eggman's face scowled at Metal's report.

"What are they doing in the sewer?"

"If I am not mistaken, they are trying to get back to the castle," replied Metal patiently.

Dr. Eggman took in the news silently, trying to think of his next move.

Metal Sonic waited patiently for Eggman to finish thinking, but when Eggman said nothing, Metal's patience wore off.

"What do you want me to do about them, Eggman," Metal asked hastily.

Dr. Eggman awoke out of his thoughts and stared angrily at Metal Sonic.

"That's DOCTOR Eggman for you Metal; don't forget who created you out of that scrap metal I found outside of my lab!"

Metal's face expression remained unchangeable, but he politely said, "Sorry, Dr. Eggman."

"That's better," said Dr. Eggman, "Now, I want you to make sure that Sonic does not make out of the sewer alive! Wash him down the drain, do you hear me!"

"Yes, Doctor," Metal said, "But what do you want me to do with Mario?"

"Do what you want with that wannabe hero. He is of no threat to my future plans."

Metal Sonic nodded his head and turned off the communicator. He had received his orders and that was enough; he had no wish to further continue his conversation with Eggman.

Metal Sonic quickly put the communicator away and dashed in the opposite direction Sonic had gone earlier. He was going to destroy his living counterpart with Sonic's worst fear.

Sonic continued walking through the sewer passage, looking for another pipe to go into to get out of his section of the sewer. Unfortunately, no matter how much distance Sonic had made there was still no sign of a pipe large enough to squeeze through. The torches were losing their brightness more and more as time passed, and it wouldn't be long before Sonic would be left in the dark once more. That was something Sonic did not want to experience all over again, so he quickened his walking pace, but did not bother to dash off yet. Sonic was more cautious this time; he had remembered what had happened to him and Mario in the cavern, and for what he knew, Metal Sonic could be following him this instant.

A sudden gust of strong wind suddenly hit Sonic in the back, sending his head quills standing straight up on his head. The torches quickly blew out, sending Sonic into another dark period into his unfortunate journey.

"Great," Sonic said grumpily as he put his head spikes back to their normal position, "A strong wind that messed up my spikes and now total darkness. What next?"

Sonic's sarcastic question was answered by a loud roar coming from behind his back. Sonic instinctively turned around and felt a wet spray of water hit his eyes. Sonic quickly rubbed his eyes to get the water out when he heard the roaring again, only this time, it sounded closer than it did before. This time, Sonic could recognize the roaring noise.

It was the sound of a lot of water rushing right towards him!

Not wasting a moment to spare, Sonic quickly dashed into the darkness, being followed by the loud roar of the approaching body of water that was coming after him.

And it was quickly covering ground.

Although Sonic could easily outrun any given obstacle chasing him, he couldn't do it in the dark when he couldn't see what was ahead of him, and it was proven when Sonic tripped over a small rock that was in his way. Sonic fell to the ground and tried to get up as quickly as he could, but it was too late. The rushing water quickly overcame him, swallowing Sonic inside its watery inside just as Sonic would swallow a grape.

Sonic struggled desperately to get his head above the rushing water, but the water was too powerful for Sonic to overpower and kept Sonic's head from reaching the surface of the water as it carried Sonic along the sewer passage. Unable to do anything else, Sonic held his breathe and waited patiently for the end to come swiftly.

Just as his air supply was about to finally run out, Sonic notice a small light ahead of him: the light of some torches that were still lit. The torches were on the other side of a large drop that was already being filled with the rushing water ahead of Sonic.

And hanging above the drop was a small rope.

As he drew closer to the drop and his possible death, Sonic noticed that, while the rushing water was going faster as it emptied into the drop, the water's surface was shrinking rapidly. No sooner had he noticed that when the water's surface dropped below his head, allowing him to finally breathe again.

Restored by the welcomed oxygen, Sonic steadied himself as he approached the drop. He would have to act fast if he was going to survive this drop, and that was what Sonic was preparing to do.

Just as Sonic reached the edge of the drop and the water was now only a couple inches deep, Sonic quickly jumped high off the edge and grabbed the rope that was hanging over the drop. Now hanging for dear life, Sonic grip tightened on the rope as he watched all the water empty itself into the drop, now turning it into a water pit.

A water pit that was increasing its depth and elevation.

Seeing the water quickly rising up after him, Sonic wasted no time in climbing up the piece of rope as he tried to escape the rising water. He was almost at the top when he heard the tearing sound of the rope he was hanging on. Sonic looked up and saw the cords ready to break loose from the rope.

Not taking any chances, Sonic swung himself over to the other side of the pit and grabbed on to the edge just as the cords finally gave away to his weight. Sonic quickly climbed up the edge of the pit and sat down on the cold stony ground, gasping for breath.

"That was too close," Sonic said as he tried to calm his shaking body down from the previous experience he had encountered.

Recovering his breath again, Sonic stood back up just when he heard the familiar roaring of water coming near him. Sonic quickly turned around and saw that the water had rose high enough to come rushing in the sewer passage.

And, once again, at Sonic himself.

"Not again!" Sonic grumbled and quickly dashed off into the passage, followed closely behind by the rushing water.

Fortunately for Sonic, the torches gave off enough light for him to see the path that was in front of him, allowing him to speed up his dash. The water rushed madly through the passage after the fleeing hedgehog, but this time, Sonic had the advantage, and he was pushing it as he speeded up through the passageway.

As Sonic increased his speed, the sound of the roaring water lessened as it disappeared out of sight of the supersonic hedgehog. Noticing the difference in the noise, Sonic turned his head around to see that he was at least a hundred feet away from the water.

"Is that all?" Sonic remarked mockingly, "The water is way behind me and I am not even breaking a sweat!"

With his eyes paying attention to the disappearing water, Sonic's feet suddenly felt not the solid floor of the passage, but thin air instead. Sonic quickly looked down at his feet and saw that he had run off another ledge and was now floating above another pit of water.

Well, at least he was floating before he realized what had happened.

Sonic frantically turned around in midair and grabbed the ledge that he had run off of. As Sonic tried to pull himself up, he heard the roaring of the rushing water coming into view as it was less than a couple feet away.

Sonic looked behind him for another ledge to grab hold of, but to his horror, there was none in sight. The sound of the roaring water was closing in on him.

Desperately, Sonic looked around for another source of escape. His eyes caught hold of a large green pipe that was sticking in the middle of the ceiling above the water pit.

The spray of the water was stinging Sonic's face as the rushing water was closing its gap between its unfortunate victim. Sonic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had no other options.

Just as the water approached the edge of the passage, Sonic's sneakers quickly kicked off the ledge and launched his body at the green pipe. One of Sonic's hands caught hold of the pipe's rim, leaving Sonic hanging over the water pit as it was quickly being filled up by the rushing water.

Sonic slowly opened his eyes when he felt a sudden coldness in his foot. Sonic looked down and saw the rising water already submerging his right foot inside it and creeping up his leg.

With no time to spare, Sonic quickly got his body up the pipe and started scrambling up it, trying to escape the rising water. The water gave pursuit after its victim and went up the pipe, its surface just inches away from the escaping hedgehog.

The light from the opening of the pipe marked the checkpoint Sonic needed. Sonic climbed faster, now being way ahead of his mindless pursuer. The opening was just about in Sonic's reach.

Then the light was blocked off by a dark metallic head. Surprised, Sonic stopped his climbing and looked up at the dark figure of Metal Sonic's head at the opening of the pipe. A smirk was on his face.

"Everyone has a fear, and yours, is going to engulf you for eternity," Metal Sonic said and with that, his face disappeared and was replaced by the lid of pipe. Sonic climbed up to the lid and tried to budge it, but nothing happened. It was only then that, as the water was coming up after him and the lid prevented him from escape, Sonic realized that something inside of him that he thought was extinct was now running throughout his shivering body: fear.

The lights of castle torches were finally visible to Mario's eyes as he quickly climbed out of the pipe and crawled out to the basement's floor. Not even stopping to catch his breath, Mario stood up and walked over to the basement's door and opened it, revealing a red carpeted stairway. Mario ran up the stairs and came to another door. Without even thinking about the consequences, Mario opened the door and walked into the castle hallway.

Right into the view of several guard robots.

"Halt! In the name of Dr. Eggman!" said one of the robots and pointed his gun at Mario. The other robots copied his move and pointed their guns at Mario also.

Mario crossed his arms and stared at the robots angrily.

"I don't take orders from a thing that has a chip for a brain," Mario grumbled at the robots.

The robots looked at each other, their chips running frequently over the information Mario gave them, before they looked back at Mario and charged up their guns.

"Annihilate the intruder!" said the head robot.

The robots all fired their guns at their intended target, but Mario was one jump ahead of them. Mario leaped before the lasers could hit him and landed behind the surprised robots. Before the robots could turn around and defend themselves, Mario jumped high into the air, formed a gigantic fireball in his hands, and with all of his strength, threw the giant fireball down to the ground. Like a grenade set by its throwers, the fireball exploded, sending the metallic parts of the robots flying in every direction while the fire devoured all that was left of the robotic guards. Feeding on the oil from the robots, Mario's fire spread throughout the castle hallway, devouring all that was in its path, metallic or nonmetallic. Soon the hallway was lit with the remaining fire and the burnt metal of all the robot guards that were guarding the hallway.

Mario landed on the floor and looked at the destruction he had created. Though he knew the importance of the art of the castle hallways, Mario didn't have a choice: it was either the hallway or the entire kingdom that would be destroyed.

A thousand hallways are worth sacrificing for the survival of the Mushroom Kingdom and Princess Peach.

"Peach!"

The memory still hung in his head, and it was causing him to blame himself more and more for putting his trust in the villainous Dr. Eggman.

"Mario?"

Mario's ears caught hold of the Italian voice that called his name. It was coming from the last door on the right in the inflamed hallway.

Not wasting anytime, Mario ran through the fiery hallway and opened the door, and gasped at the sight that he saw.

There, standing in the middle of the room was a large cage, and inside the cage were Luigi, Toad, and the Mushroom people.

Mario ran up to the cage and examined its occupants. Luigi and the others were all dirty from what appeared to be a long struggle, but none of them seemed to be seriously hurt.

"Luigi, what happened to you? How did you and Toad and everybody get locked up in this cage?"

Instead of answering him, Luigi pushed him away from the cage.

"Get out of here Mario!" Luigi cried in a loud voice.

Mario recovered from the push and came back to the cage.

"Not until I free you first," Mario said as he studied the details of the cage that was holding his brother and his friends. He noticed that the door to the cage was closed by a big lock that hung around the keyhole.

"Where is the key?" Mario asked Luigi.

Before Luigi could say anything, Toad jumped in front of him and waved his arms wildly in Mario's face.

"Go away! Before he comes to get you!"

"Not until I free you first," Mario said to Toad and then turned to Luigi, "Luigi, where is the key?"

"It is not here, but go away now!"

Mario stopped and stared at his younger brother. His blue eyes were filled with terror, a terror that Mario has never seen in Luigi before.

"What is wrong, Luigi?" asked Mario, "Why am I to go away and desert you?"

"Mario, listen to me!" Luigi said desperately, "A strange human has taken over Peach's castle!"

"I am aware of this human you are speaking of, and I am not afraid to face him."

"But Mario, you must get out of here now! This whole thing is a…"

"Trap," said a dark familiar voice.

Mario quickly looked behind him and into the hallway. Out of the rising flames came a tall dark shadow, followed by the glare of two red metallic eyes. His body was made of blue metal, and his head was decorated with some metallic spines that were sticking out of his head. The fire seemed to retreat from the dark figure as it finally entered the room and closed the door behind him. A loud click could be heard as the being locked the door with a golden key he had in his hand: a key, as Mario clearly recognized, that once belonged to Princess Peach.

The being looked upon Mario and held the golden key in front of Mario's face.

"It seems that your Princess has some value after all," said Metal Sonic and he put the key behind his metallic spines.

Mario glared angrily at Metal Sonic, not revealing any expression on his face. It was this creature who had killed his new friend, who had helped his master take control of the castle, who had tricked Mario all along into thinking that it was Sonic who was the real enemy.

And it was the creature that was prophesied in the painting in the bell tower: the one who was to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom.

Though he tried to not show, Mario's anger could be clearly seen boiling inside of him. Catching sight of this, Metal walked up to Mario and gave an evil smirk.

"It isn't everyday that I get to kidnap one's love, but I always take advantage of it."

Mario had to force himself to not send a fireball into the evil metallic face.

"Where is the princess?" Mario asked impatiently.

"You mean Peach?" asked Metal sarcastically.

"You know directly what I mean! Now where is she?"

Metal Sonic shook his shoulders.

"Why ask me?"

"Because it was you master that kidnapped her!" shouted Mario, now ready to blow off his temper.

Metal Sonic thought on the subject for a moment and came back with another smirk.

"If you want to know anything of your princess, I suggest you ask Dr. Eggman himself…unless…"

Metal stopped speaking and looked at Mario, the smirk still across his face.

When seeing that Metal wasn't going to say anything, Mario asked impatiently, "Unless what?"

"Unless," stated Metal, "You agree to hand over the Mushroom Kingdom to Dr. Eggman."

Mario's anger was at once ceased for the moment as a great confusion rushed into his head.

"What are you talking about?" asked Mario, "I do not rule the Mushroom Kingdom."

"According to Princess Peachy, you do!" said Mario, "She told us that you were the one who was now in charge of the Mushroom Kingdom."

Metal's statement brought a sudden flashback into Mario's head.

"_I want you to promise that if anything should ever happen to me in the near future, you will be in charge of the kingdom till you find someone worthy to govern the land."_

It was true! Princess Peach had given him full authority over the Mushroom Kingdom until he gives it to someone else.

Mario looked back at Metal and knew what person he had in mind to govern the Mushroom Kingdom.

"As long as I shall live, I will never surrender the Mushroom Kingdom to your master, who is not worthy to rule any land at all!"

A little cheer came up from Toad and his fellow servants, but was stopped when Metal looked at them with his evil eyes. Once he quieted them down, he turned back to Mario.

Mario was unstirred by Metal's evil glare. He felt as if he had just scored the first victory in the upcoming battle ahead.

"Metal Sonic, as the new ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, I banish you and Dr. Eggman from the kingdom for all the crimes you had done!"

Metal's reply was the crossing of his arms and the growing evil in his glare.

"Very big talk for one who doesn't have anyone to side with him," noted Metal, "I apologize that I cannot do your order, your majesty!"

And with that Metal gave Mario a clumsy bow, enough to show that he was mocking Mario's sovereignty.

"And why is that?" asked Mario.

Metal did not get up from his position.

"Because I am afraid that I have orders from my master to either take the Mushroom Kingdom from you by peace or by force," Metal said as he stood back up, "And unfortunately for you, you will never see your princess again for now I will slay you in her castle! Prepare to die, Mario!"

And with saying that, a large bolt of electricity came out of Metal's hand and shot right into Mario's body, sending Mario flying into one of the castle walls. Mario fell down to the ground, but quickly got back up just in time to see another bolt of electricity coming at him. Mario rolled away from the electric bolt and got up into a defensive position, now ready for anymore of Metal's attacks.

Metal Sonic looked interestly at Mario's defense position and gave Mario anther one of his evil smirks.

"You are going to have to be more prepared than that if you want to save your Peachy!"

Mario's hand suddenly turned into a fireball as he finally let his anger out.

"Stop calling her that!" yelled Mario and he threw the fireball directly at Metal's head.

Just as the fireball came into harm's distance, Metal Sonic held up his hand and caught the fireball in his metallic hand. Mario watched as Metal smothered the fireball with his hand until it was gone completely.

"What are you going to do about it?" Metal asked mockingly as he turned back to Mario and slowly walked towards him.

Instead of going back to his defensive position, Mario's hands lit up with fire.

"As much as I alone can do to you!" yelled Mario and he walked towards Metal as well, his hands now flaring up with a large flame. All the things that Metal Sonic had done to him were going to be resolved here in the room, in front of Luigi and the servants.

Inside the cage, Toad closed his eyes in fear as Luigi stood at the bars and watched what was going to be one of the biggest duels ever fought in the Mushroom Kingdom.

The rising water was already at Sonic's neck. Sonic again pounded on the lid to try and break it, but the metal was too strong to be broken by even Sonic's powerful punches. Sonic climbed up even closer to the pipe, now rising out of the water, and tried to roll up into a ball, but thanks to the thickness of the pipe he was in, Sonic was unable to move his body sideways, and instead of rolling into a ball as he originally planned, Sonic only managed to get his body stuck even worse in the pipe. Now he was really trapped, and he couldn't do anything about it!

Unable to move, Sonic watched as the rising water caught back up to him as it was submerging his feet into its predatory grasp. The coldness of the water made his body shiver even more not of the coldness, as Sonic suddenly noticed, but by his fear which was now exploding throughout his whole body. Never had he felt so much fear inside of him than he did in that pipe right now at that hour.

And it was all thanks to Metal Sonic.

"Metal!"

The fear inside of Sonic's body suddenly sparked off the flame of hatred in his heart for his metallic counterpart, and unlike the other times Sonic would try to hold his anger in, the anger was starting to take over his body.

And Sonic could feel it.

As the water finally submerged Sonic's head underwater, Sonic's body started to change. His usual blue color was turning darker, into a dark blue color that almost resembled black. Sonic's friendly green eyes turned into a pair of dark green eyes that were filled with both fear and anger. Sonic's whole body shook even more as his anger was rushing throughout his whole body, empowering his limbs with more strength than he ever thought he had before. Sonic was no longer holding his breath under the water's surface; instead, he wasn't breathing at all. His anger had finally taken control over his entire body.

With a quick flash of motion, Sonic's dark gloved hand punched the metal lid with more force than he did before. The pipe's lid immediately broke open, spewing water from the over flooded pipe everywhere. Sonic, if that was who he was anymore, immediately jumped out of the pipe and landed on the cold wet ground of another sewer passage. Not even trying to catch his breath, Sonic dashed away from the water filled pipe and further into the sewer passage.

It was then that Sonic's brain started to take control of Sonic's body again. Sonic stopped running and fell to the ground. He was unable to move as his body was trying to fight off the anger inside of him.

"It's not right!" Sonic's conscious told him. "Hatred will never create anything, but it will destroy everything that you love!"

Sonic's shivering body started to calm down. Sonic's original blue color was starting to reappear again, and the hatred in his eyes had disappeared. His body was had fought off the anger inside of him. Sonic's character was back again.

Now capable of thinking clearly again, Sonic stood up and looked around for an exit to the sewer. He was rewarded when he saw another large pipe sticking in the ceiling just above his head. Sonic jumped into the pipe and climbed up it until he saw the light coming from its opening. The light was brighter than it was before, so Sonic quickened his pace and poked his head out of the pipe. No longer was he in the sewer. Instead of seeing the usual torches that lit the sewer, the room he was in was lit by a beam of sunlight coming from a large window in the ceiling of the room. From the details of the room he was in, Sonic knew where he was: Princess Peach's castle.

"Finally," said Sonic as he climbed out of the cold sewer pipe.

Just as Sonic got out of the pipe, he was almost knocked to his feet by a large quake that shook the whole castle. The next minute, though, the shaking stopped.

"What was that?"

Interested in finding what caused the small quake, Sonic dashed off into the castle hallway in search for an answer for his question.

Another electric bolt sent Mario sprawling on the ground, but he quickly got up again to face his adversary.

Metal Sonic made no sudden movements as he walked slowly towards Mario. Their duel, as Metal Sonic knew from the beginning, was a one sided victory, for although Mario was all filthy and bruised from the duel so far, Metal Sonic did not receive even a single scratch from Mario's attacks.

And Metal looking forward to not receiving any at all.

Seeing Metal approaching him, Mario threw some fireballs at Metal Sonic in hope of slowing him down, but the fireballs just glanced off of Metal Sonic's metallic skin. It was enough of a distraction, however, for Mario to start his attack again.

Mario rushed up to Metal Sonic, striking at him with a number of several swift punches and powerful kicks. But although his attack was indeed impressive, it did not help Mario at all in this duel. Metal Sonic just dodged each of Mario's punches and jumped up to avoid his power kick. Seeing him in the air and at a bad position, Mario jumped in the air and tried to ram him into the wall. Just as he came into contact with Metal, however, Metal Sonic quickly dashed down to the grounded, leaving Mario crashing into the wall at full force. The castle shook at the impact Mario took into the wall, and he fell down to the ground, gasping for his breath.

Metal Sonic approached him again and gave another smirk at Mario.

"You may have potential in this world, but in the real world, your attacks are slow and pathetic. I can't even bear to tell you how much dishonor I am getting for fighting a wimp like you!"

No sooner had Metal said this when Mario suddenly jumped high in the air and, having formed a giant fireball in his hands, threw the fireball at the unsuspecting enemy. The fireball created a huge explosion throughout the room, setting everything on fire except the cage that held the prisoners in.

Mario landed on the ground and looked into the fiery mess he had created.

"How is that for a wimp?" asked Mario.

A small cheer went up from Luigi and the other prisoners, but it was interrupted by a dark voice.

"Not bad, not bad," said Metal Sonic as he walked out of the burning rubble and into Mario's view, "Your attacks could possibly be good on my counterpart, but they are useless on me. I do not fear fire just as I do not fear anything else."

Seeing Metal Sonic still unharmed, Mario rushed up to Metal and tried to punch his metallic face. At the last minute, Metal's hand grabbed Mario's fist and squeezed it with his own strength. Mario yelled in agony as he felt his hand being squeezed by a hand stronger than his own, and tried to hit Metal with his other fist. Metal caught that fist too with his other hand and squeezed that hand as well. Mario's yelling grew along with the pain in his hands.

Suddenly, Metal lifted Mario in the air and, with a great amount of strength; he threw Mario into the wall. Mario's injured body fell to the floor and laid there, too injured to be moved.

Metal Sonic walked up to the injured plumber and put his foot on Mario's stomach. Mario tried to get up, but the pain in his body made him too weak to take Metal's foot off his stomach.

Metal Sonic looked at Mario's weak struggle and laughed.

"Still trying to fight, are you?" jeered Metal, "Can't you see that you have already been defeated? You have been defeated at the very beginning when I entered into your life. You might have been able to stop Eggman if you had teamed up with Sonic earlier, but now it is too late! Sonic is dead, and you will be too!"

At that statement, Metal's hand flared up with electricity, ready to send Mario to his grave.

"Farewell, Mario!" shouted Metal Sonic.

Not wanting to see the end, Mario closed his eyes. He had failed Peach, Sonic, Luigi, and the whole kingdom. And now he had failed himself.

Just as Metal Sonic was ready to give Mario the death blow, a large blue ball appeared out of nowhere and struck Metal Sonic in the chest, throwing him off of Mario's stomach. Feeling the weight off of his stomach, Mario opened his eyes and, to his amazement, saw Metal Sonic lying on the ground not too far from him. A figure was standing between Mario and Metal Sonic; a figure with blue quills and friendly green eyes.

Mario recognized him immediately, but couldn't believe it.

"Sonic!"

"Hey, Mario!" replied Sonic and gave Mario a small wave, "I saw you were in a jam, so I came to help you out."

Feeling the strength coming back to his body, Mario quickly got up and went over to Sonic. At the same time, Metal Sonic recovered from Sonic's attack and looked at Sonic in astonishment.

"Sonic!" said Metal, "How did you survive?"

"You should know me better than that, Metal," said Sonic as he rubbed his nose, "You can never manage to get rid of me."

Metal Sonic got up and glared at Sonic, his eyes producing more evil than he had done with Mario.

"Doesn't mean I can't try to!" said Metal Sonic, and he formed into a tight blue ball and headed straight for Sonic.

Sonic quickly formed into his own ball and spindashed at Metal Sonic's ball, causing both of them to collide and fall back, but they both quickly recovered and went at it again. The whole room was filled with the noise of the two rushing hedgehogs dashing at each other with fists, kicks, spindashes, and other attacks to determine who the true Sonic was.

Mario and the prisoners watched in amazement as the two duelists, almost equally even in speed, agility, and strength, dash quickly across the room, each trying to get the better of each other, each of them trying to settle the oldest dispute they had in years.

While it was truly amazing to watch them fight evenly, Mario couldn't stand it any longer. Mario went over to the cage where Luigi and the other prisoners were being kept.

"Luigi, where is the key?"

Luigi pointed to Metal Sonic.

"He was the one who locked us up, so I am sure he has it."

Mario nodded, understanding that there was no way to gain the key from Metal Sonic. Mario studied the lock for a while, and then grabbed it in his hands.

"What are you doing?" asked Luigi.

"Trying to set you free, of course," Mario answered as he pulled on the lock, trying to break it free from the cage door.

Metal Sonic noticed Mario's actions and canceled his attack from Sonic.

"Get away from there!" Metal yelled at Mario and dashed right at him.

Before Metal got to Mario, though, Sonic appeared in front of Metal and shoved him into the wall, causing them to both go through the wall. Mario sighed at the incident that just happened and continued working on the lock.

Metal Sonic laid on the ground, a little injured from the duel he had with Sonic. Sonic stood over him, waiting for Metal to start his attack again. Instead, Metal decided he had enough fighting for one day and flew into the air above Sonic's head.

"Another time, Sonic, when I feel ready to face you!"

"I'll be ready then!" Sonic said and nodded his head.

Metal replied with a nod of his own and flew past Sonic and came to Mario.

"And I'll settle my score with you as well, Mario!" Metal said in a low voice and he quickly flew out the window and into the setting sun.

Sonic climbed out of the stone rumble and went over to Mario, who was pulling very hard on the lock that held the cage door closed.

"Do you need help?" asked Sonic.

"Nope,"

"You sure?"

"Yes, I am sure," replied Mario, forgetting how annoying Sonic could get at times.

"Fine then."

Mario was too busy to notice Sonic's reply. He could feel the lock giving away to his strength. He almost had it.

Then a sudden electrical shock came from the lock and sent Mario rolling on the floor. Sonic just looked at Mario and smiled.

"You sure you don't need my help?" he asked again.

Mario got up from the ground and motioned Sonic to the lock.

"Be my guest and amaze me some more today," Mario said grumpily.

Sonic shook his shoulders and took out a key from his quills and went over to the lock. He fit the key into the lock and turned it. The lock fell to the floor and the cage door flew wide open.

Mario stared at Sonic in amusement.

"How did you get that key?"

"Metal Sonic dropped it when I was fighting him," replied Sonic, "I kind of figured it belonged to this cage."

Before Mario could say anything else to Sonic, Luigi and the other prisoners jumped out of the cage and surrounded Mario.

"Are you alright, Mario?" asked Luigi.

"Yes," Mario said, "And what of the pipe that I left you to fix?"

"I was able to fix it before I was captured by that creature," Luigi reassured Mario.

"Mario, what do we do now?" asked Toad.

Mario looked at the Toad and the servants. He could tell that there were some missing.

"Where are the rest of the servants?" asked Mario.

"They have been taken to one called Dr. Eggman," said Toad.

"But not all of them," replied another of the Mushroom servants, "I heard the fat man say that he was holding them prisoners in different locations across the meadow outside the castle."

Sonic, listening in interest, spoke for the first time.

"Do have any idea of what Eggman is going to do with your people?"

The Mushroom people seemed to notice Sonic for the first time, and when they saw him, they backed away in fear of the resemblance he had with their previous capturer.

"It's okay," Mario reassured them, "This is Sonic the Hedgehog. He is my friend."

Being reassured by Mario, the Mushroom people went back up to Sonic and answered his question.

"No, he never said what he was going to do with them."

"I have a feeling I know what he is going to use them for," said Sonic.

Mario looked at Sonic in interest.

"For what?"

Sonic closed his eyes and turned to the Mushroom people.

"In my world, Dr. Eggman would at times kidnap animals and put them into powerful robots to make them stronger and smarter than before. I have a feeling he will use your friends for the same purpose."

The sudden news brought an outcry amongst the Mushroom people.

"We can't allow Eggman to do this," said Toad, "I say we go to the meadow and free our companions before he uses them to kill us all."

"Yes," replied the Mushroom People and before Mario could object to their ruling, the Mushroom people and Toad rushed out the room and into the castle hallway.

Luigi looked at Mario.

"What do you want me to do?"

"You better follow them and make sure they do not get themselves into trouble," commanded Mario.

"Okeydockey!" replied Luigi and he ran out the room and went after Toad and the other Mushroom people, leaving Mario alone with Sonic.

"Now what do I do," Mario asked Sonic.

Sonic shrugged his shoulders.

"Why ask me?"

"Because the foe we are fighting against happens to be your enemy," Mario said, "I believe you know what his plan is."

"All that I know is that Egghead has this powerful weapon called the…"

Before Sonic could finish his statement, a loud noise was heard outside the castle. Sonic and Mario both went to the balcony and saw a large robotic fortress settle itself a couple miles away from Peach's castle. The Eggman symbol was addressed everywhere on the fortress.

"Not very decorative is he?" asked Mario.

"Not really," replied Sonic.

At that moment a large hologram of Eggman appeared in front of Sonic and Mario.

"Good evening Sonic," said Eggman, "I noticed that Metal has failed to kill you, but that doesn't mean you are capable of stopping my plans to build the _Eggman Empire_."

Mario looked at Sonic.

"The _Eggman Empire_?"

"That is correct, my little friend," said Eggman to Mario, "And you have the pleasure of being part of it. I have been informed by your lovely princess that you are now in charge of the Mushroom Kingdom, and that it is your decision to give it to me. Surrender the Mushroom Kingdom to the _Eggman Empire_, or I will destroy your castle with my ultimate weapon."

"I will never surrender the Mushroom Kingdom to you!" Mario said, not even thinking about what Eggman said about the ultimate weapon.

'Very well," said Eggman, "Be prepared to be blown away!"

The hologram disappeared, and a large door opened up, revealing a large gun like weapon that was aiming at the castle.

Sonic recognized the weapon immediately.

"The _Egg Dentastrater_!"

"The what?" asked Mario.

Sonic ignored Mario's question. How was it possible for Eggman to use the _Egg Dentastrater_ without the use of all seven chaos emeralds? It was impossible! Unless…

The gun barrel of the _Egg Dentastrater _was filled with pure energy and was ready to fire on its target. Sonic grabbed Mario and jumped off the balcony just as the _Egg Dentastrater_ fired. The pure energy blasted at the castle and exploded, sending pieces of stone rubble everywhere. Sonic suddenly felt a large rock hit his head as he collapse on the ground and fell unconscious. Mario landed beside him, but before he could do anything, a large boulder fell on top of both Sonic and Mario, pinning them to the ground. Soon, Mario fell into unconsciousness and laid beside Sonic's still form.


End file.
